


Golden Age of Impossible

by Leia1979



Series: Impossible [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia1979/pseuds/Leia1979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torchwood finds an alien ship in London and calls in Rose and the metacrisis Doctor to investigate, but there's no sign of the ship's inhabitants. The adventure only gets more complicated when Rose and the Doctor run into an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after "Getting Back to Impossible" but before "A Proper Goodbye for the End of Time."
> 
> I still don't own anything but a few _Doctor Who_ shirts and a bunch of photos I took in Cardiff.

"Come along, K9!" the Doctor shouted as he grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her into a run. The TARDIS was only a couple blocks away, but the growing angry group of locals behind them was gaining ground as they ran down a pedestrian walkway hemmed in by tall skyscrapers on either side.

"Affirmative, master," the robotic dog answered in his mechanical voice. "Engaging hover mode." The squat metal dog began to levitate and travel faster than he could roll along the pavement.

As the Doctor and Rose neared, the doors to a public holophone booth at the end of the path slid open with a snap of his fingers to reveal the inside of the TARDIS. They ran to the console to prepare the ship to dematerialise, working together in concert like they'd done this many times before, with Rose taking two sections of the hexagonal console and the Doctor and his several hundred years of experience piloting the time ship taking the other four. The outer doors quickly slammed shut the very second K9 cleared, nearly pinching the end of his antenna-like tail. The console room reverberated with the sound of fists pounding against the door for just seconds before they were safely in the Time Vortex.

Rose fell onto the beige padded jumpseat, howling with laughter, as the Doctor leaned against one of the pinkish-gold coral struts with his hands shoved into the pockets of his new grey suit with light blue pinstripes. Rose didn't have the heart to tell him the grey didn't suit him. Even worse, she was fairly certain the TARDIS agreed with her about the colour.

"How was I supposed to know that would happen?" the Doctor protested. Rose only laughed harder at his rare bewildered expression. "It was just a kiss," he complained.

Rose clutched her stomach and tried to take a deep breath without dissolving into giggles. "The all-knowing Time Lord," she gasped. "Parallel universe must be driving you barmy."

"I've been to Pantellion before. They weren't this adamant about personal space," he insisted.

"You mean you didn't notice that not one person we saw got within a few feet of the next? Or the nasty looks we got just holding hands?" By his expression, Rose knew her Doctor, despite his brilliance, had been totally oblivious. "Maybe we should start reading up on places  _before_  we visit."

She crossed over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. The Doctor left his hands in his pockets, continuing to pout. Undeterred, she went up on her toes to press her lips to his. It didn't take long for him to return the kiss and work his hands underneath her tan leather jacket, linking his arms around her back. Satisfied, Rose pulled back with a grin that was mirrored on the Doctor's face.

"Well, we won't be visiting there again," he declared. "At least not so long as snogging results in a riot."

"You love it," Rose teased. "Be honest, that's the most fun you've had all week." Rose's mobile started to vibrate, and she reluctantly released the Doctor to pull it from the back pocket of her jeans.

"Tell Jackie we were just 'round for tea," he whinged, making a half-hearted attempt to swipe the mobile from her hands.

"Not mum; it's Torchwood," she replied quickly as she hit the answer button.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Can't be New Year's again already."

"His brilliance left his mobile off again," a sarcastic voice greeted Rose through the phone. She glanced up at the Doctor and could tell he'd heard Jake Simmonds. "Pete's looking for ya."

"Time machine, Jakey boy. Just tell us where and when," he said, leaning towards Rose and her mobile to ensure he was heard.

"No guarantees we'll actually hit either of them," Rose commented, earning her an offended look from the Doctor.

"Oi, I'd like to see you hit the exact spot out of all of space and time, Rose Tyler."

Rose stuck her tongue out him and got the necessary info from Jake before she rang off. "Pete's conference room in Torchwood Tower, fifth of June, 2013. Ten a.m."

"Canary Wharf on a Wednesday?" The Doctor started setting controls as Rose followed him around the console. "I think I'd rather skip to New Year's."

"What's wrong with Wednesday?"

"It's just stuck there in the middle of the week. Nothing interesting happens on Wednesday."

"I thought that's what you said about Sunday."

"Oh, Sunday's still worse. Avoid those as much as possible." The TARDIS jolted on landing, causing Rose to grab onto the Doctor's arm to stay upright. "Here we are. Better stay in the TARDIS, K9. I don't want some overly ambitious researcher trying to disassemble you."

"Affirmative. I will perform a recharge cycle," the robot answered before quietly rolling away down the corridor.

"He's such a good dog." Rose grabbed the Doctor's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze before they walked down the ramp to the doors. She'd had four additional years to disassociate this Torchwood from the one responsible for unleashing Cybermen and Daleks on Earth. The director of this Torchwood being her father (more or less) certainly helped as well, but the Doctor still tended to be wary.

Rose pulled the TARDIS door open to reveal the large conference room that adjoined Pete's office. The Thames was visible from the floor to ceiling windows, and a sleek zeppelin floated in the distance between scattered clouds. A long oval wooden table surrounded by identical modern black chairs filled the room. Pete Tyler, in his customary dark suit, sat at the head of the table with Jake Simmonds to his left. Rose walked around the table to hug both Pete and Jake in turn.

"Don't think I'll ever get used to you appearing out of a cabinet like that," Jake said.

Rose looked back to see that the TARDIS had once again turned into a stainless steel filing cabinet. "She seems partial to that one."

"The TARDIS spent over a decade as a filing cabinet in Torchwood Three," the Doctor explained. "I expect it's comfortable. Only Rose seems to be able to coax her into being a police box."

"Drives him mad, too," she commented in a conspiratorial whisper as she took a seat next to her father. "So is this the meeting?"

Pete Tyler cleared his throat slightly. "The meeting ended at half eleven, but Jake and I will get you caught up."

Rose quickly glanced at the clock on the wall to see that it was nearly two in the afternoon. At least they'd gotten the date and location correct. She grabbed the Doctor's hand to still him as she noticed him twisting back and forth in the ergonomic office chair. She got the impression he was feeling a little sheepish for getting the time wrong. The inkling didn't come from anything he was doing but rather a faint sense of emotion she received when she touched his hand.

Maybe she needed to stop teasing him about his bad driving. He'd told her before that his connection to timelines wasn't as strong here, though he wasn't sure whether it was a result of living in a parallel universe or being part human.

"This was found early this morning near a barge on the south end of Blackwall Basin." Jake tapped the screen of his tablet and an image was projected on the white wall of the conference room. Next to a rusty old barge moored at the edge of the oval basin was an indistinct black crescent shape. With another tap, the viewing angle changed to show the black shape was a ship that resembled a sharp-edged boomerang. It was maybe a quarter of the size of the barge, and the dark hull was marred.

"That's practically next door," Rose commented. "Did it crash?"

"We don't think so," Pete said. "A recovery team is already on site, and they report the ship is relatively undamaged. We can't seem to contact anyone inside, so we're airlifting the entire thing to Torchwood Tower."

Rose could feel the Doctor's tension just from holding his hand. It didn't seem to escape Pete's notice, either. "You look like you don't approve, Doctor."

"You don't know what it is, and yet your first instinct is to move it closer to hundreds of people," the Doctor said coldly.

Pete Tyler bristled. "I assure you, we thoroughly investigated before deciding to transport it here."

"Do you know what it is?" Rose asked before the men on either side of her got into a row.

The Doctor shook his head. "There are a number of species with similar ships, plus just about anyone could have purchased or even stolen a ship. You're sure it was empty?"

"As far as we can tell, yes. We're not as primitive as you seem to think, Doctor." Pete's phone buzzed, and he picked it up to read the screen. "The ship has arrived. Shall we take a look?"

Pete and Jake led the way from the conference room to the lifts. When they reached the top floor, Rose figured out where they were going, and her steps faltered. The Doctor, holding her hand as usual, couldn't help but notice and looked at her with concern. She didn't think he yet realised they were heading for a room neither of them had set foot in in nearly five years. It was the one part of Torchwood Tower Rose had always managed to avoid until now.

The lever room had been repurposed as a lab for any and all things that had to be airlifted to Torchwood Tower, and part of the tower roof had be retrofitted to slide open. The two large levers on either side of the room had been removed, but the enormous white wall that Rose had pounded her fists against as she had desperately screamed to go back to her original universe was still there, now partly obscured by computers and metal shelving. That white wall featured prominently in her nightmares for years.

At some point during her mute introspection, the Doctor must have also recognised where they were. His hand on hers tightened until the grip was almost painful. She leaned closer to him in response and felt sorrow and regret sweep through her. She was fairly certain those emotions were the Doctor's, not her own. Looking up at him, she saw the Doctor's face was a cold mask that didn't betray his actual feelings, and it was an expression Rose didn't often see with the part-human Doctor, who tended to be more open and less adept at hiding his emotions than his Time Lord counterpart. It was among the few traits he'd inherited from Donna, along with occasional bouts of insecurity that the Time Lord Doctor had never shown.

"Rose?" Pete Tyler asked, noticing his daughter and the Doctor stood motionless at the entrance to the room. It suddenly occurred to him that he'd never seen Rose in this room or on the top floor of the tower at all since the day he'd rescued her from the Void. "Oh God, I'm sorry Rose. I didn't think–"

"It's fine," she said brusquely, taking a deep breath and pulling her shoulders back. "We have a job to do." She finally forced her attention to the hulking dark grey ship taking up about half the room. It only showed how badly the memories of this room shook her that she hadn't paid the ship any mind until now.

Rose pulled her hand away from the Doctor's, both to survey the ship and to distance herself from the Doctor's emotions that had been trickling through their telepathic link more often of late. She strode around the point of the crescent shaped ship to observe it from what appeared to be the front. Jake, Pete, and the Doctor followed, the Doctor pulling his sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket to scan the ship.

Darkened windows lined the inner curve of the crescent and the blunted points contained exterior airlock doors. Satisfied with his external scans, the Doctor approached one of the airlock doors and changed the sonic screwdriver's setting to open the door. Rose moved to follow him when Jake put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. With a hard look, she shrugged him off and kept walking. She grabbed a torch from one of the lab benches and stepped into the darkened airlock. Even with the torch and light coming through the open door, the empty airlock was eerie. She stepped through the interior door to the hallway of the ship and scanned the corridor in both directions for the Doctor.

"Doctor?" Her voice echoed through the empty ship. Suddenly bright lights came on overhead and Rose could see the interior walls were the same dark grey metal as the ship's exterior. She chose to go left towards the front of the ship but nearly jumped out of her skin when the Doctor's head appeared around the corner. The heavy torch fell to the metal grating of the floor with a clang.

"Only me." The Doctor swept up the fallen torch and handed it back to Rose. "No sign of life on board, except for us, of course."

"Then how did this ship end up in Canary Wharf?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know. Damage to the outer hull's just regular wear and tear for this type of ship. As much as it pains me to admit, I agree with Torchwood–it didn't crash."

"Abandoned, then?"

"Possibly, but why?" He began pacing the narrow width of the hallway as he thought. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the ship. No reason for them not to come back. But if that's the case, why leave the ship on Torchwood's doorstep?"

"You never seemed too concerned with the TARDIS. Parked it right next to the estate."

He stopped his pacing to address Rose. "Well, a blue police box doesn't gain the same sort of attention as an obvious spaceship."

"Obvious," Rose echoed as a thought occurred to her. "You don't think it's a decoy. Like with the Slitheen?"

"Subtle for a decoy, however… Blimey, why didn't I think of that? Rose Tyler, you are brilliant as always." He spun her around in a brief but enthusiastic embrace and led her quickly back out of the ship. "Jake," he called as he jumped through the exterior airlock door. "You lot monitor everything, so where did this ship come from?"

"I don't know. It just appeared, sort of how the TARDIS does." Jake brought up the CCTV footage on his tablet and turned the screen towards the Doctor. The image of boats and barges moored in Blackwall Basin was almost completely static until the dark crescent-shaped spaceship shimmered into existence.

The Doctor frowned at the video. "That's not possible, at least not under its own power, which means something brought this ship here."

"Can the TARDIS track where it came from, like you did with the Slitheen's ship?" Rose asked.

He shook his head. "No, we didn't arrive until after this ship appeared."

"But you have a time machine," Jake said, sounding perplexed. "Can't you just go back and wait for it?"

Rose jumped in before the Doctor could answer. "That would mean crossing our own timelines. Can't do it. Well, we shouldn't do it."

The Doctor grinned proudly and pulled Rose closer to him with an arm around her waist. "Exactly. Don't want to risk tearing a hole in the universe, even if it is only the size of Belgium."

Jake frowned at the Doctor and looked to Rose questioningly. She stared back for a moment before she realised the source of Jake's confusion. "There's no Belgium on this Earth," she whispered. "It's part of the Netherlands."

The Doctor's eyebrow rose. "Is that why the waffles seem odd here?"

"Doctor Smith," Pete Tyler interrupted loudly. The Doctor paused for a moment before acknowledging him, still not completely used to his human identity. "Is there anything else you can tell us about this ship?"

"Oh, loads," the Doctor replied airily. "Probably. I need to bring in my consultant first." He started fiddling with his sonic screwdriver, not even looking at Pete.

"Consultant? Doctor, I'm afraid I can't authorise–"

Rose laid a hand on her father's arm. "Don't worry, you won't even have to pay him."

The doors to the lever room opened as something glided into the lab. A number of the Torchwood scientists gasped as the silver boxy robot floated past them.

"Is that a robot dog?" Jake asked no one in particular.

"May I present K9, a fine example of fifty-first century robotics," the Doctor said with pride. K9 was, after all, partly his own handiwork.

"Right, the tin dog," Jake said to Rose. "Mickey told me about him. But how'd he get here?"

K9 landed gently on the floor of the lever room, and the blinking colourful buttons on his back were now visible. "Greetings," he said in a mechanical tone. "I am K9 Mark V."

"He's not the same one," Rose replied. "This one is new and improved and native to this universe. The Doctor built him for me." She gave the man in question a loving smile which was immediately returned. Jake might have gagged at their obvious affection if he didn't consider Rose such a good friend or if he hadn't personally witnessed her four-year effort to find a way back to the Doctor. After all that, he figured they deserved to be as disgustingly sweet as they liked.

Pete looked sceptical. "And how is...K9 going to assist?"

"One," the Doctor held up a finger, "he can access the ship's computer to find out where it came from and what happened to the crew. A bit like those black boxes you lot put on aeroplanes. B, no wait, two." He glanced at his hand, thought for a moment, and held up a second finger. "Yes, two, he can perform environmental analysis on the ship's interior. I may be brilliant, but there are times–not often, mind you–that a big brain and a sonic screwdriver aren't enough."

Rose tried desperately to suppress a lopsided smile. She'd never in her life met anyone with a gob like his. "I've got to go dig my desk out from underneath all the paperwork. Let me know when you two are done here." She pressed a kiss to his cheek and headed for the lift, not half-relieved to be out of the lever room and away from that oppressive white wall, even if a small part of her worried about leaving the Doctor behind in that room.

She wasn't really exaggerating about the paperwork covering the desk in her small office. Her time spent at Torchwood had become sporadic over the last several months, especially in contrast to the previous four years, when she had practically lived here or at Torchwood Three in Cardiff. Maybe she ought to talk to her father about becoming a consultant like the Doctor.

Rose dropped into her chair and took a small handful of items off the top of the neat stack on the corner of her desk. For a company with so much technology, there was a surprising amount of actual paper. The first few items were reports that required her review and signature. Rose felt a twinge of guilt when she noticed the third item was already dated more than a month ago. It had been awhile since she'd been in the office.

The next item in the pile was a page of newsprint with one torn edge. Rose wondered how that had ended up on her desk until she recognised her own face in the black and white photo in the first column. She couldn't place when the photo had been taken, but she apparently hadn't seen the camera, either, as she was obviously too engrossed in the Doctor, who was standing next to her in the photo.

 _Vitex Heiress spotted with new mystery man_ , the caption read.

Rose sighed and set the page aside. At least the tabloid hadn't figured out the Doctor's identity. He'd been reluctant to make any public appearances, and Rose was just as happy to skip the society events her mum tried to talk her into. She'd take traveling with the Doctor over making polite small talk with Vitex board members any day.

For four years, Rose's life had been so dull (to the tabloids, at least) that the paparazzi had largely given up on her. A lack of scandals or even boyfriends meant she wasn't worth their time. But as her public appearances dwindled since the Doctor's arrival in this world, any sighting of the Vitex Heiress was apparently newsworthy again.

Rose sighed and folded up the news clipping. She'd do better to finish up her paperwork and follow it with a bit of shopping. The TARDIS, despite how much she could do on her own, apparently drew the line at replenishing the groceries, and Rose was out of milk.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose walked up the stairs carrying bags of groceries and her reward—a paper-wrapped portion of chips that had her name on it as soon as she set the shopping down. The door to the Doctor's infrequently used flat was unlocked, and she carefully turned the knob without dropping anything and pushed it open with her foot. The sparsely furnished living room and kitchen were devoid of life, so she poked her head into the bedroom, which proved to be equally empty. The second bedroom had a desk with a number of electronic components spread across it. Rose smiled when she spotted a freestanding wardrobe in the corner of the room, and she carefully balanced her precious packet of hot chips in her hand as she pushed the door open with her shoulder. She entered the TARDIS and was grateful to the ship when she found the kitchen just off the console room.

With the cold items stored away, she took a seat at the table when the Doctor finally wandered in as if on cue. He'd changed back into his brown suit, and Rose couldn't help thinking of the Time Lord Doctor every time she saw that suit. She immediately told herself she was being stupid. He was never coming back to this universe, and even if he did, he wouldn't appear on their TARDIS. And once she'd convinced herself she was being an idiot, she felt guilty for thinking about the other Doctor at all.

Fortunately the Doctor missed Rose's internal crisis as he was preoccupied trying to snag one of her chips. Instinctively, Rose slapped him on the arm. The Doctor collapsed into the chair beside Rose and ate his stolen chip.

"Why do we work for Torchwood again?" he asked as he chewed. "You know, I only consulted for U.N.I.T. when I couldn't travel in the TARDIS."

Rose plucked another chip from the pile and held it out of his reach, not an easy feat given his greater height and longer reach. "I work there because I don't know of anyone else who could have built a dimension cannon. And, you know, nepotism," Rose replied with a smile. "You work for them because you didn't have a TARDIS when you got here. Plus, we need money for our retirement plan because using the sonic on a cashpoint is not a long-term financial solution."

The retirement plan had become a bit of an inside joke between them—a house of their own with a garden sufficient to house the TARDIS. Rose figured she'd believe it when she saw it.

"We could just live in the TARDIS forever. No mortgage. Easy commute."

Rose laughed. "That sounds like the Doctor I know. I don't even know why you still have a flat. We haven't been here in weeks."

"It's a safe place to keep the TARDIS that isn't your parents' garden."

"What's wrong with my parents' garden?" Rose asked innocently. She already knew the answer but couldn't resist goading him.

"Oh, it's a perfectly lovely garden, but it's generally a bit too close to your mum."

"I'm going to tell her you said that," she said with a mischievous grin that dissolved into laughter at his horrified expression.

"You wouldn't. We're a team! Mutt and Jeff. Shiver and Shake and all that."

Rose considered for a moment. "Only if you let me be Shake this time."

"You drive a hard bargain, Rose Tyler," he said as he leaned in close, his lips just inches from hers. Rose closed her eyes in anticipation until she heard the rustle of paper. Her eyes flew open, and she grabbed the Doctor's wrist faster than he thought possible, causing him to drop the pilfered chip.

"That's the other reason you work for Torchwood. So you can afford to buy your own chips. So what did you and K9 discover about the ship?"

"Sadly, there was nothing titled 'devious plan to conquer Earth' or anything like that. You know, things would be so much easier if they did. Or maybe just a really good villain monologue where they explain all the details of their intricate plan."

"Doctor," Rose interrupted when he paused for breath. "I want to know what you found, not what you didn't find."

"Oh, but what we didn't find is quite telling. We found no sign that the ship landed in London at all. Its last known landing coordinates place it in California, the state not the planet. Nor the hotel, for that matter."

"Then how did it end up in Blackwall Basin?"

The Doctor's face curved up in a mad grin. "I've no idea!"

"You know, most people aren't quite so happy not having answers," she said affectionately. "Do you know whose ship it is?"

"The ship's logs were in Voedem, which is used by all four inhabited planets of the Voed system."

"And why did the Voed come here?"

The Doctor gave Rose that look that always made her think she'd dribbled on her shirt. She forced herself to keep her eyes on him and not look down like she so wanted to.

"Voed is a solar system, not a species. There are, in fact, three different space-faring species in the Voed system, any of which could have procured the ship. As for why, I'll direct your attention back to the decided lack of invasion plans."

"You don't know," Rose said decisively, one eyebrow quirking upwards.

"Well, that is to say...no," the Doctor replied, looking a little sheepish now.

"And there's no sign of the crew?"

"Nope."

"Do you think the ship poses any threat?"

"The ship isn't sentient. It's vacant and perfectly stable. Safe as houses."

"And you told Pete all of this?"

"I did, but why all the questions, Rose?"

"It seems you've done all you can, and no one's in danger. I don't think they need us."

"I think you may be underestimating our contributions to Torchwood," the Doctor huffed. Rose kicked him lightly under the table, and she grinned when the Doctor's eyebrows rose in understanding. "However, we might benefit from some time away from the problem. Inspiration is just the thing–get a new perspective, then pop back to solve the mystery. But we need to make a quick stop in Cardiff first."

* * *

"How often do we need to do this?" Rose asked as the TARDIS materialised next to the gleaming silver water tower in Cardiff's Roald Dahl Plass.

The Doctor pulled the door open and turned back to Rose. "Refuel or check on the growing TARDIS?"

"Both, I suppose, though I meant the baby TARDIS." She followed him out into the plass with its multi-coloured lanterns surrounding the basin towards Mermaid Quay and the small tourism office that disguised the entrance to Torchwood Three. Rose glanced over her shoulder out of newly formed habit to check what appearance the TARDIS had assumed. It was another pillar just like the ones that ringed the plass.

"Every six weeks or so should do it for now. She'll need less care as she matures. Once the TARDIS is a decade old, a yearly check-up will do."

"Until U.N.I.T. moves in," Rose added as she swiped her Torchwood badge to open the tourism office door and crossed the small room to the hidden entrance built into the wall.

"Never thought I'd prefer Torchwood to U.N.I.T."

"Don't worry, I won't tell," Rose whispered.

They entered the cavernous main room of the Hub with its dingy white tile and myriad of computer-laden desks. A woman with short black hair and glasses sat behind the largest array of monitors.

"Hello, Tosh," the Doctor greeted cheerily and perhaps too loudly for the virtually empty room.

Toshiko Sato jumped, her glasses going askew. She visibly relaxed upon recognising her visitors. "Oh, hello Doctor, Rose. Come to check on your–" her eyes darted around the room and her voice diminished to a whisper "–spaceship?"

Before they could answer, another voice rang out across the room. "Who are you?" the Welsh-accented voice demanded. The Doctor and Rose turned to see a woman with shoulder length dark brown hair and heavy fringe coming down a flight of stairs from one of the offices above. Her expression was stern as she approached, but her face was familiar.

Rose turned to the Doctor. "Gwyneth," she whispered.

"Gwen," he countered. "Worked for Jack, remember?"

Rose thought back to seeing the woman's face on the TARDIS viewscreen not long before being returned to the parallel universe. "Spatial genetic multiplicity," the Time Lord Doctor had said. A fancy phrase didn't make it any less eerie.

Rose stepped ahead of the Doctor, brandishing her Torchwood badge in front of her. "I'm Rose Tyler, and this is Doctor John Smith."

A dubious look briefly crossed Gwen's face at the Doctor's assumed name, but she quickly turned her attention back to Rose. It was easy to see exactly when Gwen realised just who Rose was, and her hard expression became a bit more friendly.

"Gwen Cooper." She extended a hand for Rose to shake. "Torchwood One doesn't usually pay us much mind, at least not since I've been here."

"And how long is that?" Rose asked.

"Coming up on three months. We've been left mostly on our own to deal with Weevils and the junk that comes through the rift."

"The rift is exactly why we're here. Well, not why we're here–that's actually a rather long and complicated story, but it's the reason we're in Cardiff today," the Doctor supplied in his usual long-winded manner. Rose shot him a warning look, but he continued on, seemingly oblivious. "I'm a consultant come to identify some of that junk. If Ms. Sato could direct me to the storeroom?"

Rose tried not to let the relief show on her face. Not only was it a plausible explanation, but he could easily identify a few odds and ends while caring for the baby TARDIS. "Yes, Doctor Smith is our foremost expert in alien artefacts." She saw the Doctor turn to give her a smug look before following Tosh out of the cavernous main room. "Thinks he's so impressive," she added conspiratorially.

"Don't they all," Gwen agreed with a wry laugh.

* * *

"Sorry about this, Doctor," Tosh said as they descended the stairs leading to the lower-level storerooms. "Gwen's a bit...nosy. She was a detective sergeant before joining Torchwood."

She pulled open the door to the storeroom that housed the TARDIS. The coral within had grown substantially since the Doctor had first brought the palm-sized fragment to Cardiff. In fact, he was pleased to see the coral was nearly as tall as he was, the bronze branches spreading out in all directions.

"Brilliant work, Tosh. The young TARDIS is flourishing."

"Doctor, if I might ask. Isn't it a problem for the future TARDIS to exist in the same time as this one? Isn't that some sort of paradox?"

"Well now, I wouldn't recommend letting the TARDISes touch, but a mature TARDIS is fully capable of sustaining a paradox if needed. In fact, the previous TARDIS met up with herself–quite literally, I might add–on more than one occasion. Prolonged exposure could result in blowing a hole in the universe the size of...well, if there's no Belgium on this earth, I'm going to have to come up with a new analogy. And possibly a better recipe for waffles."

Tosh looked confused but had learned to ignore the Doctor's gob, so she moved on quickly. "You seem a lot happier now than when I first met you."

The Doctor flashed her an intense grin that made Tosh duck her head with a shy smile. "All of space and time at my fingertips." He wiggled his fingers for emphasis.

"I think there's more to it than that," she ventured shyly.

"You mean Rose."

"She seems happier, too," Tosh continued. "Remember, I met her when she was still trying to find a way back to her universe."

"I know. The dimension cannon wouldn't have succeeded without you. Thank you," he said sincerely.

"So everything's back to how it was."

"Yes, mostly. In some ways better. Though I do miss my coat sometimes."

Tosh thought she'd misunderstood. "Sorry. Your coat?"

"Yes, fantastic coat. Long and swoopy. Goes perfectly with this suit. Got it from Janis Joplin, ooh, centuries ago."

"But that was the 1960s," Tosh said with a frown.

"Oh yes."

"Less than fifty years ago."

The Doctor scanned the growing TARDIS coral with his sonic screwdriver. "You really should stop thinking of time in such a linear fashion."

"And how should I think of it?"

"It's so much more complicated than that. Like a big ball of wibbly–" He adjusted a knob on the machine nearest him. "–wobbly–" He pushed a few buttons on the next panel. "–timey–"

"Doctor?" Rose called from the doorway. "How's the identification going?" Not surprisingly, Gwen was right behind her.

Tosh hurriedly grabbed a cart piled with unidentified items and pushed it towards the Doctor.

"Quite well," the Doctor said smoothly. "There's a food processor and a broken remote drone. Oh, and I haven't seen one of these in years." He held up a nondescript black box. "Video game console. A bit like one of Earth's old Atari systems but requires three hands to play. And," he pointed to a large item sitting on the base of the cart, "the second hairdryer I've seen in as many months."

"Who throws a hairdryer into the rift?" Gwen asked.

The Doctor just shrugged. "And now we have to be off. A pressing engagement in San Francisco. You understand."

Gwen nodded, although it was clear she didn't understand anything about the Doctor. He waved goodbye to Tosh and grabbed Rose by the hand to lead her out of the underground facility.

"What a strange man," Gwen commented. Tosh could only nod in agreement.

* * *

"What's so urgent in San Francisco?" Rose asked as they walked across the plass towards Wales Millennium Centre and the TARDIS.

"Janis Joplin."

Rose stopped walking but didn't let go of his hand, forcing the Doctor to stop, too. "Is this about your coat?"

"No. Well, maybe." Rose merely raised an eyebrow and he crumbled. "All right, yes. But Rose, it's history. 1969—the summer of love. Hippies and flower children. Great music; awful tie-dye."

"And your coat. If this Janis Joplin even has it." Rose looked into the Doctor's pleading brown eyes and lost her small amount of resolve. She'd never been to California, and they'd already agreed to take a break from the mystery ship. Plus, her mum or Pete would phone her if they needed anything. "All right. Next stop, San Francisco."

The Doctor grinned gleefully and swung Rose around in a circle before setting her down and kissing her soundly. She looked up at him slightly dazedly and told him breathlessly, "Well, if you'd just done that in the first place, I might not have argued."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side. "Really? I'll keep that in mind."

Rose swatted him playfully before running past him into the TARDIS as she made a beeline for the wardrobe room.


	3. Chapter 3

Rose checked out her appearance in the tall three-way mirror the TARDIS provided in the wardrobe room. "Summer of love, here I come," she said aloud, satisfied with the fringed suede vest and bell-bottomed jeans. The wide flare of the jeans hid her own comfy trainers. Her shoulders were bare, and she hoped San Francisco wouldn't be too cold. It was California after all. Satisfied the look screamed "flower child," she ran back into the console room to find the Doctor.

Of course he hadn't changed. He almost never did. The Doctor was dancing around the console to something that sounded familiar but Rose couldn't quite place. 1960s rock and roll of some sort. Inexplicably, his tie was around his forehead, and he'd found small round John Lennon-style sunglasses.

"Ready?" Rose couldn't help smiling at how adorable he was sometimes. She ran past him to the doors of the TARDIS and flung them open. Thankfully, the air outside was warm and dry. They were parked in a narrow alleyway, and Rose could see the street beyond. A trolley rolled past, but she didn't think San Francisco cable cars were that bright red. A man and woman strolled down the sidewalk beyond, he in a boxy suit and fedora and she in a calf-length dress and hat. Not the hippies she'd expected.

"Doctor?" Rose called, getting a sinking feeling that he'd missed the mark again as she continued to look around. "I don't think this is 1969." The music stopped–Jefferson Airplane, she'd finally recognized–and he joined her at the doorway to take a deep breath.

"Hmm," the Doctor commented. "I'd say 1939. That's...close."

Rose turned back to him with a narrowed gaze. "Not San Francisco either," she said decisively.

"Really?" He followed the direction Rose pointed to see a large sign nestled in hills turned brown with the summer heat. "Oh." The tall white capital letters clearly spelled out Hollywoodland.

"One of my mates in school went to California once to visit her grandparents. She was so excited to see Disneyland until she found out it was hundreds of miles away from San Francisco."

The Doctor leaned casually against the doorway of the TARDIS. "Well, even here you'd have to wait sixteen years for Disneyland to open, and admittedly, the last time I went to San Francisco, I got shot."

Rose's jaw dropped as she whirled to look at him. "You what? When?"

"Oh, it was ages ago. 1999, to be exact. Although it was a very long time before I met you, to me, that is. You wouldn't even have recognized me, before or after regenerating. Anyway, I guess I can't blame the TARDIS for wanting to avoid that city. She had a bit of a rough go of it, too. Well, the other TARDIS, though this one remembers it just the same."

No matter how long ago it had been, Rose looked horrified. He gave her a bright, cajoling grin and prattled on. "Well, at least we're in the right country–right state, at that. It's not like I told you New York and landed in London." Rose started to come back to herself, giving him a wry look as she recalled him doing exactly that. "You mean to say you've never wanted to see Hollywood's golden age?"

"All right. I have to change though." Rose ran back to the wardrobe to find the TARDIS had already picked out an outfit for her. She exchanged her jeans and fringe for a teal short-sleeved dress with white polka dots and a white collar. The hem fell to about an inch below her knees, and white T-strap sandals and a pocketbook completed the look.

Since it was the Doctor's fault she had to change, she took the time to pin up her blonde hair before returning to the console room. The Doctor, not surprisingly, was bouncing on his toes in impatience. He'd lost the sunglasses and put his swirly blue tie back in place. He gave Rose's new outfit an appreciative look and held his arm out to her. Rose entwined her arm with his as they exited the TARDIS onto the streets of Los Angeles. She gave a quick look back to see what disguise the TARDIS had assumed so they could find it again.

"Oh, look, she's a phone booth!" The medium brown-stained wood was a bit bland compared to police box blue, but the overall shape was pleasantly familiar.

"Now who would put a phone booth at the end of a tiny alleyway?"

"You just miss the blue box." Rose tugged on his arm. "Now come on. Give us the history lesson."

The Doctor couldn't resist a chance to pontificate. "Hollywood, Tinseltown," he began dramatically. "Its first golden age.  _The Wizard of Oz. Gone with the Wind. Wuthering Heights. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_."

"Not Doctor Smith?" Rose teased, using his alias in this world. A bright red trolley lumbered past them, the rattling noise forcing a pause in the conversation.

The Doctor frowned slightly. "I have been to Washington, the city, the state, and the space station, mind you. But that Mister Smith is Jimmy Stewart. Haven't met him yet."

"You mean there's someone famous you haven't met?"

"I'm only nine hundred and five, relatively speaking. Not exactly enough time to meet everyone on every planet in all of time, even with a TARDIS."

Rose looked around the wide street with old-fashioned cars bustling back and forth on either side of the trolley tracks. Plenty of people were out walking on the warm, make that  _hot_ , sunny day. She felt bad for the men in suits and was grateful the TARDIS picked out a light summer dress for her.

"Pinstripes really are a hit in this era," she commented.

"Never go out of style, me," the Doctor boasted. Rose tried not to laugh as she thought of him wearing the same suit both in the nineteenth century and the year five billion (and change), although nothing beat her first doctor in his jumper and black leather jacket in Victorian Cardiff.

"So, Rose Tyler, what would you like to see?"

"The Walk of Fame?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Sorry, we're a couple decades early."

"How about the theatre that looks like a giant pagoda?"

"Grauman's Chinese Theatre, built in 1927 and home to movie premieres for over a hundred years. Should be just a short hop by streetcar." He started to move towards the sign up ahead indicated a trolley stop when Rose pulled him back.

"My Oyster card doesn't exactly work in the U.S. And especially not in the nineteen-thirties. How are we supposed to pay the fare?"

"The red car is only a nickel, Rose."

"I don't have a nickel," she hissed. "And neither do you."

"Check your handbag."

Rose raised her eyebrows but opened the white pocketbook the TARDIS had provided to find a small stack of green bills and an assortment of coins in addition to a tube of red lipstick. "Where'd this come from, mister I-don't-carry-money?"

He ignored her to tow her towards an approaching streetcar. She tried to repeat the question, but the metal on metal squeal of the wheels drowned her out. Rose struggled to find the right fare amidst the unfamiliar coins whilst the Doctor led her to the slowing trolley. Only the pennies were obvious. She hastily pulled out two coins that were about the same size as a 5p coin and held them out to the Doctor.

"Those are dimes, Rose. Just one will do us." He plucked one out of her hand, and she dropped the other back in her pocketbook. With a hand on her lower back, he guided Rose up the steps into the bright red streetcar and dropped the dime in a collection box beside the uniformed conductor before taking a seat beside Rose on one of the polished wooden benches.

"It's just like in the film," Rose whispered in his ear.

"Which one?"

She flushed slightly pink. " _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ "

"Oh, now I haven't seen that in centuries."

"Centuries? I was maybe two when it came out."

The Doctor smirked at her. "Time Lord. It wasn't terribly long before that whole San Francisco incident. For me, at least. But if you want real, classic Hollywood, how about I take you to see the premiere of  _The Wizard of Oz_?"

Rose's eyes lit up. "Really? I used to love watching that with my mum when I was just a kid."

"The premiere should be tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken," the Doctor said confidently. The streetcar squealed as metal wheels rubbed against metal track and the car slowed to a stop. The Doctor stood and pulled Rose up from the bench and out the door. She'd been looking at the wrong side of the street and might have missed the massive theatre.

The streetcar trundled away, giving Rose her first real view of the theatre. The building was almost gaudy, with a green roof to the central pagoda, red columns, and spiky flares coming off the corners of the roof. Two simpler buildings flanked the pagoda but featured spiked turrets at each corner. The Doctor yanked a gobsmacked Rose across the wide street to bring them closer to the theatre, and that's when she noticed the giant marquee.

"MGM's amazing  _The Wizard of Oz_ ," she read aloud before turning to give the Doctor a wry look.

"Well, I'm not wrong," he said glibly. "That means today is the fourteenth of August, 1939."

"And how are we going to get into the premiere?"

The Doctor reached into the vast pocket of his brown pinstriped jacket and removed a black leather folio. "Same way we always do."

"Psychic paper. So who are we gonna be?"

"Film critics from  _The Times_  of course. I'll be the hardboiled newspaper editor and you can be my plucky girl Friday, though that movie won't come out until next year."

Rose ignored his fanciful playacting. "I don't think  _The Times_  had film reviews in the 1930s."

"Well," he drawled, "the Americans won't know that."

"Wouldn't it just be easier for the psychic paper to look like tickets?" she asked reasonably.

"Where's the fun in that, Rose Tyler?" He swept off in the direction of the box office, and Rose hurried to catch up. She found he'd turned his full charm on the poor woman working behind the box office window. He'd also put on a much more posh accent than his usual tones, and the conservatively dressed woman with grey-streaked brown hair was just putty in his hands.

"I'm so very sorry for the mix-up, Mister Burns," she said breathlessly as she passed two tickets through the cut-out in the window. "Here are the tickets for you and your assistant." The woman's eyes cut quickly to Rose and narrowed before she looked back to the Doctor with a simpering smile. "You'll be attending the gala at the Roosevelt Hotel tonight, yes?"

"Absolutely," he replied with a grin as he leant against the counter. "What time is that again?"

"Seven o'clock. It's black tie; though I'm sure you already knew that."

"Thank you so much for your invaluable assistance, Edna," the Doctor schmoozed as he pocketed the premiere tickets. He whirled around and winked at Rose, who had decided to do her best impression of a 1930s secretary by standing demurely off to the side until they were out of sight of the box office.

"So, Edna," Rose commented to him once they'd rounded a corner of the building. "I bet you didn't even need the psychic paper."

The Doctor tugged on his ear and flushed slightly, making his freckles stand out against the wash of pink on his face. "Well, er, she was quite helpful."

Rose wrapped her fingers around the lapel of his suit and pulled him down so she could kiss him. When she let go, she couldn't help the self-satisfied smile on her face. "Come on, we've got to find your tux for tonight."

* * *

The Doctor continued to list the occasions where bad things happened whilst wearing a tuxedo the entire trip back to the TARDIS. Rose couldn't comprehend that the Doctor, of all people, thought an item of clothing was cursed. She pointed out the tuxedo he had now wasn't even the same one.

"The Titanic wasn't so bad," she offered as the streetcar once again slowed to a stop.

"We could have died," he insisted, holding out a hand to help her down to the steps to the pavement.

"And how many times have we nearly died while you were wearing this?" She plucked at the sleeve of his pinstriped suit.

"This particular suit? Only twice. We weren't in any real danger on Barcelona."

Rose sighed and pulled her TARDIS key from under her dress before unlocking the door of the apparent phone booth and pushing it open. She felt the familiar welcoming hum of the TARDIS in her mind as they entered the console room. Grabbing the Doctor's hand again, she started down the corridor towards the wardrobe.

"But Rose," he protested, hanging back.

"Let's ask the TARDIS," Rose suggested. "Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It's not like we came for the fourth great and bountiful human empire to find it neither great nor bountiful. It's just 1930s California. The biggest danger is probably getting hit by a car or an earthquake or something."

"Actually–" the Doctor started, but Rose just turned him towards the console's monitor and gave him a light shove.

"Ask the TARDIS. I'm going to go find a dress for tonight," she said with a saucy grin before sauntering down the corridor. When she reached the wardrobe room, she was excited to find the TARDIS had assembled an entire rack of 1930s appropriate evening gowns for her. They were all gorgeous with lace and velvet and sequins in a variety of colours. All of them were floor-length and had matching shoes.

After playing dress up for awhile, Rose settled on a red bias-cut satin gown with a low draped back. The dress was so long that her red and gold T-strap heels were hardly visible, but she couldn't resist ruby slippers for a Wizard of Oz gala. After repinning her hair, Rose noticed a gold beaded clutch and long gold necklace on a rack near the mirror along with a dark stole. Rose debated whether or not she wanted to wear the soft fur stole until TARDIS sent her the image of a teddy bear.

Her brow crinkled in confusion as she tried to figure out what the TARDIS was communicating. "Oh, it's fake—a really good fake. All right then, clever girl," she said aloud. She wrapped the dark brown glossy plush around her shoulders and admired herself in the mirror. She rather thought she was the height of 1930s glamour. She just needed to find some lipstick and her date.

Rose found the Doctor sat on their bed in trousers and a half-buttoned tuxedo shirt. He'd combed his hair downwards into something a little more appropriate to the time period than his normal gravity-defying hairstyle. He seemed to be having a conversation with himself out loud, which she didn't find terribly concerning. He hadn't yet noticed her presence, so Rose rounded the bed to find K9 on the floor at the Doctor's feet. Now the conversation made a bit more sense, though it seemed even K9 hadn't yet convinced the Doctor his tuxedo wasn't a harbinger of doom.

Rose struck a pose leaning against the wall and put on a sultry tone. "Are you sure I can't convince you, Doctor?"

"Rose, I–" he broke off mid-sentence as he turned around and saw Rose. His dark eyes widened as he looked her up and down before jumping up from the bed. He closed the distance between them in two strides as she pushed off the wall to meet him, and Rose noticed his hands twitching slightly at his sides as if he didn't know what to do with them.

"Rose, you look beautiful."

"For a human," she added with a tongue-touched grin.

"For anything," he replied earnestly.

"Does that mean I've convinced you to attend the party?" She reached out to do up the last remaining buttons on his shirt.

"I suppose so. Can't be any worse than the last time I was on Earth in the 1930s."

Rose frowned. "Do I want to know?"

"It involves Daleks and mutated pig-men."

"I think I've had enough of Daleks to last me several lifetimes, so maybe not." Rose turned away to sit at her vanity to touch up her makeup while the Doctor finished getting dressed. He was just shrugging on his jacket when she caught sight of him in the mirror, and Rose paused to admire him. Sometimes she marvelled at the life they led, when she wasn't otherwise occupied running for her life.

"Ready, Doctor Smith?"

"Ready, Miss Tyler," he replied, holding out his arm to her. "But tonight it's Mister Burns. Walter Burns of The Times."

Rose took his arm as they left the room. "And where's that name from?"

" _His Girl Friday_."

"And I'm the girl Friday?"

"Oh you're much more than that." He pulled away to start programming coordinates into the console.

"You don't really look like a Walter," Rose commented as she leaned against the jumpseat. "So am I still me?"

The TARDIS gave a slight jolt as they landed. "You'll always be Rose Tyler. Well, except when you need an alias."

"She didn't even ask for my name, did she?"

The Doctor looked down at his black and white Converse. "Not exactly."

Rose pushed away from the jumpseat and wrapped her arm around the Doctor's. "That's all right. I don't mind being your plus one."

The Doctor grinned in response and opened the TARDIS door. They were just across the street from exactly what old movies had shown Rose to expect of old Hollywood. The hotel was actually a rather plain beige building from the outside, maybe a dozen stories tall, but what caught her eye was the red neon sign atop the building that proclaimed "Roosevelt Hotel" in large capital letters. The sign would only glow brighter once the sun had finished setting, but even in twilight, it must have been visible for a mile. A line of antique cars were parked along the street running beside the hotel, reminding them they were still in the 1930s.

"I think we've found it," she quipped as they crossed Hollywood Boulevard, leaving behind the TARDIS that still resembled a brown wooden phone booth. They walked up a partial flight of steps, Rose holding up the hem of her long gown as not to step on it, and entered the lobby of the hotel. The room was expansive, with polished warm wood floors forming an intricate design and high ceilings with golden chandeliers casting a soft glow. Rose tried not to just stop and stare at the beautiful interior.

"This place is practically new," the Doctor whispered to her. "Ah this must be the place." He guided Rose through a tall double doorway off the main lobby into a ballroom with decor just as grand as the lobby. He presented the psychic paper to the young man in a burgundy hotel uniform guarding the ballroom door.

"Welcome sir, ma'am," he greeted them earnestly. "May I take your wrap?"

The Doctor watched slightly suspiciously as the sandy haired young man helped relieve Rose of her stole and handed her a claim chit in exchange. "Thank you," she replied, putting the chit in her beaded bag. She threaded her arm through the Doctor's once again as they continued into the room. Circular tables set with fine china and crystal vases edged the room around a wooden dance floor filled with elegantly dressed couples. A small orchestra filled a stage beyond the dance floor playing a slow swing tune.

Rose gave the Doctor a sly smile. "Maybe they'll play our song."

"Possibly. Though the version you know was only recorded two weeks ago." The Doctor seemed slightly distracted, glancing around the room as he spoke. "Oh look, Rose, nibbles!" He pulled away to make a beeline towards a waiter with a tray of canapés. Rose watched him with mild exasperation and decided to continue exploring the room. He'd find his way back to her eventually.

"A dame as beautiful as you can't possibly be here by herself," a smooth American-accented voice said in her ear. Rose bristled slightly at the word "dame," thinking it sounded out of place anywhere outside of the movies even in the 1930s. She turned around to send the man on his way, thinking she shouldn't have let the Doctor wander off, when he started to introduce himself. "Hello, I'm–"

Rose looked up at the man and stifled a gasp, nearly biting her tongue in the process. The handsome man in a white tuxedo flashed her an all-too familiar grin. He looked a little younger than she remembered, and his brown hair was a little longer, but there was no mistaking his identity.

"–Jack Harkness," he finished, his grin faltering just slightly at the blonde woman's strange reaction.

"Rose Tyler," she replied with an outstretched hand, recovering quickly from the shock.  _This Jack doesn't know you,_ she told herself. She saw the edge of his vortex manipulator peeking out from beneath his starched white cuff as he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

"You're a long way from home," Jack commented suavely without releasing her hand, a mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes. "Are you an aspiring starlet?" Rose understood why her nineteen-year-old self couldn't resist the charm of Jack Harkness. As well as she knew him now, it was still easy to be swept away by him.

"Just here for the premiere. Do you work for the movie studio?"

Jack still hadn't let go of her hand. "You could say that. Care to dance, Miss Tyler?"

Rose nodded and let herself be led to the dance floor, Jack's hand feeling strangely warm against the bare skin of her back. The band struck up a new song, smooth and slow, and Rose bit her lips to contain her laughter. "Moonlight Serenade," the same song they had danced to during the London Blitz. Different Jack, different Doctor, a different country, and a different, albeit parallel, universe, but some things apparently never changed.


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor licked his fingers after finishing his hors d'oeuvres and looked around for Rose. It didn't take long for him to spot the blonde in the figure-hugging red dress near the edge of the dance floor, but he glowered when he saw her dance partner holding her entirely too close for his comfort as they glided smoothly around the floor. He started weaving through the crowd with the intent to cut in when the pair turned and he finally saw the other man's face. There was no mistaking Jack Harkness, and the Doctor found he suddenly had an inexplicable urge to growl "hands off the blonde."

The man dancing with Rose was most certainly Jack Harkness, but he wasn't their Jack. Logically, he knew it was mostly impossible for Jack to have travelled to this universe, but even more telling, this man didn't carry that sense of wrongness that the other Jack, the fixed point in time, had. Even in this part-human form, the wrongness had been obvious, but this man was just a regular bloke...who happened to be getting entirely too cosy with Rose. He continued to the dance floor to tap Jack on the shoulder.

"May I cut in?"

Jack's feet stopped moving, though he didn't let go of Rose. He gave the Doctor an appreciative glance, and the Doctor steadily held his gaze. Rose felt the tension starting to build, so she jumped in quickly, just like old times. "Jack, this is–" Oh no, what was the Doctor's alias today? "–Walter."

"Walter Burns," the Doctor finished, remembering to put on his fake accent and amicably extending a hand. "Editor, The Times." Jack shook his hand enthusiastically, but by his expression, the Doctor wasn't sure his cover story was believed.

"Perhaps you'd like to join me for a drink," Jack suggested, finally stepping away from Rose to swipe two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and heading for an unoccupied table in the back corner of the ballroom.

"Cheeky," the Doctor commented, noticing the other man didn't even glance back to see if they were following him.

Rose grabbed his arm and tugged him along. "Do you expect any less? Even if he isn't our Jack."

Jack gallantly pulled out a chair for Rose before sitting on her right with the Doctor to her left. The round table was covered with a pristine white cloth and sparkling crystal centerpiece filled with white lilies and roses. He took a sip of the champagne before jumping in. "So, who do you work for? And don't tell me The Times."

"Work for?" Rose echoed.

The Doctor leaned in to speak softly in Rose's ear. "I suspect he thinks we're Time Agents."

"Actually," Jack drawled, also leaning in to address the Doctor, "I'd hope Time Agents would blend in a little better with the local colour. Your look screams late twentieth century, at best. You won't find those shoes outside of a basketball court in the 1930s. Bold, pairing them with a tux."

"Thanks," the Doctor said dryly.

"Miss Tyler is carrying a twenty-first century mobile, and you seem to have lost your classy accent, so who are you? And since I'm pretty sure you don't work for the Agency, why are you here?"

"Oh, just doing a bit of sightseeing," the Doctor replied airily.

"Freelancers," Jack grumbled.

"Really, we're just here on holiday," Rose insisted as she tried to keep things peaceable. "Let's start over. I'm Rose Tyler, and this is the Doctor."

Jack gave her a disbelieving look. "Come on, I'm not stupid. The Doctor's just a myth."

"You've heard of me," the Doctor interjected, sounding pleased. "Usually that's what people say about Time Lords."

"What's a Time Lord?"

The Doctor's expression closed off as he went back to business. "Right. So what brings a Time Agent to the twentieth century?"

Rose shot the Doctor a confused look, considering the Jack they knew had left the Time Agency to become a freelancer, as he called it. Her confusion only deepened when Jack went along with it.

"Someone's interfering with the timeline. I don't know who, at least not yet, but it's here and soon. I'm guessing it's not you two."

"Well, it could be," the Doctor suggested, not wanting to be discounted.

"Doctor!" Rose hissed. She grabbed his hand atop the table and clumsily tried to send a telepathic message for him to shut up. "It's not us, but maybe we can help you."

"Sorry, sweetheart. Official business. But," he added, leaning close to Rose and putting his arm across her mostly bare shoulders, "what's business without a little pleasure?" He winked at the Doctor, who was giving him a glare that reminded Rose of someone, but she couldn't quite place it. Rose just laughed and shrugged Jack's arm away.

"Sorry, I'm with him." Rose tilted her head towards the Doctor, whose expression immediately lightened and turned almost smug.

"Oh, that's quite all right," Jack leered. "It's not often I meet such a good-looking couple."

Rose leaned in and kissed Jack on the cheek, leaving a smudge of red lipstick behind. "It was good to see, uh,  _meet_  you, Jack."

Jack grabbed her wrist as she stood and planted a quick kiss on her lips. "And you, Rose. Nobody's gonna believe I met the Doctor," he added, glancing at the man who was now back to glaring at him harder than ever. Jack suppressed a slight shudder at the storm he saw brewing in the other man's eyes. The legends were right–he most definitely was not human.

The Doctor, uncharacteristically silent, grabbed Rose's arm and led her at a rather brisk pace through the cluster of tables across the room. She could feel the anger radiating from him. As they passed through the main entrance of the ballroom, the young man in the hotel uniform hopped up to chase after them.

"Miss! You forgot your wrap."

Rose halted and pulled her arm free. "What is wrong with you?" she hissed to the Doctor. She pulled the claim chit and a quarter from her beaded bag and handed them to the hotel employee in exchange for her stole. "Thank you."

"Thank you, miss!" The man pocketed his tip and scurried back to his post.

Rose continued their path through the hotel lobby to the exit without bothering to see if the Doctor was with her as her heels clacked rapidly on the hardwood floor. She could feel his presence behind her, a bit like a storm cloud, but they were not having a row in the lobby of a posh hotel.

Once they were back in the TARDIS console room, Rose tossed her stole over one of the coral struts and rounded on the Doctor. "What the hell was that about?"

"I told you the tuxedo was cursed," he grumbled with a sour expression.

"Cursed?" Rose repeated. "It was a perfectly lovely party. Nothing happened!"

"Billions of people on this planet, and you run into Jack bloody Harkness."

Rose had a sudden moment of clarity and her anger cooled. "You're jealous." It wasn't the first time Jack Harkness had been a bit of a sore spot between them, but Rose had always thought it was due to the Doctor's protective nature.

The Doctor sputtered. "I am not."

"It's just like the first time we met him. Oh, this is rich." She took his hands in hers. "I'm not nineteen anymore, Doctor. Jack is my friend, and I love him for that, but I crossed universes to find you. I want  _you_ , you daft alien."

The Doctor's eyes returned to their normal warm brown as he stood frozen for a moment, staring at Rose. He removed his hands from hers to place them on her back and pull her close. Rose wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled him down to her, and snogged him thoroughly. Gradually, the sound of swing music began to fill the console room.

"I'm sorry, Rose. I get a little carried away sometimes." While it wasn't easy for him to admit it, he was genuinely remorseful for his behaviour. He'd lost the tight grip on his emotions he'd always had as a Time Lord, and humanity was proving to be more of a struggle than he'd ever imagined. "May I have this dance?" the Doctor asked, beginning to sway them back and forth in time with the music.

"No extra points for a half nelson," Rose teased as she let him take her hand.

The Doctor spun her out and pulled her back in with a flourish. "I think you'll recall I'm a much better dancer this time around."

"Then show me your moves," she tried to challenge, although she was smiling too much to look serious. Rose shrieked as she found herself airborne with the Doctor's hands tight around her waist as he swung her in the air. He set her down lightly and led her through a complex series of turns that ended with Rose's back pressed against the Doctor's front and their linked arms wrapped around them both. She leaned back and looked up to see a confident grin plastered across his face.

"Not bad," Rose commented dryly, knowing it would rile him up.

"Not bad!" the Doctor protested as expected. "I'll have you know, Rose Tyler, that I am the King of Swing."

"The what?"

"Well, I have passing knowledge of several forms of dance," he amended.

Rose unwrapped herself from their linked arms to face him. "Yeah? Since when?"

"Nine hundred years gives one plenty of time to learn."

"So I was right all along." She placed her hands on his shoulders. "The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances."

"I was just playing hard to get back then."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh, is that what you called it? You, my dear Doctor, had a bad case of Captain Envy. And I think you've relapsed." She poked him in the chest for emphasis. The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, but Rose silenced him with a finger on his lips. "But I have just the cure for it."

* * *

The next morning—and for as much as the Doctor insisted there was no morning on the TARDIS, it was nearly 10am Pacific Standard Time just outside the doors—Rose, still in her dressing gown, padded out of their bedroom to the smell of something delicious. She made the short trip to the kitchen to find it disappointingly unoccupied and fixed herself a cup of tea. With the hot mug in hand, she continued on to the console room in search of the Doctor.

Not surprisingly, the Doctor, dressed now in his blue pinstriped suit and with freshly styled hair, stared intently at the monitor with his black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and a round, golden brown object in his hand. K9 was on the floor beside the Doctor's feet.

"Something smells gorgeous," Rose commented, her voice sounding rough to her own ears.

"Rose!" he greeted cheerfully. Sometimes she hated how chipper he was in the morning, as much as she could hate anything about the Doctor, which really wasn't much. He brandished the round object, which Rose now realised was a waffle, in front of her.

"I have an idea—well, several ideas really—on how to improve this world's waffles. You see, the irons here are made differently, meaning they haven't achieved the ideal proportions of depth and wall thick–"

Rose abruptly stopped the Doctor's ramble by plucking the waffle from his hand and taking a bite. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "It's good. But how long have you been working on this?"

"It was something to do whilst K9 scans for alien tech. And you know I don't need much sleep."

Rose nearly did a cartoonish double-take. "What did you say?"

He frowned at her. "That I don't need much sleep. I mean, I need more than I used to but less than you do. But you know this–"

"Not that. What you said before."

"I'm scanning for alien technology."

"But you never do that."

The Doctor placed a hand to the back of his neck. "Well, 'never' is an awfully strong word. 'Infrequently' would be more accurate."

"And did you find anything?"

"Of course. Just because you lot tend to explain everything away as a hoax doesn't mean there haven't been plenty of aliens visiting this planet throughout human history."

Rose sighed in exasperation. "Did you find anything related to Jack's mission? Whatever's disrupting the timeline?"

"Well, I did find signs of a cloaked ship not far from here. A little too well-hidden for tourists."

"So I take it our plan for today is to find an invisible ship?"

"Not invisible, Rose, just cloaked. A quick hop with the TARDIS will bring us right to their front door." He began programming the console for the move and Rose felt the TARDIS shimmy.

"I'll go get dressed. I don't really want to run around L.A. in my dressing gown."

The Doctor looked up from the console, finally noticing what Rose was wearing. "Oh. Right. Didn't stop me from battling the Sycorax, though."

Rose looped her arm around the Doctor's. "And I'm glad you did, but I'm gonna go change first." She kissed him on the cheek and took off for the wardrobe. Once again, the TARDIS provided, as Rose found a white short-sleeved blouse and loose slacks with a higher waist than she'd ever worn in her life. It was definitely an outfit better suited to running than the dresses she'd been wearing. She changed quickly and hurried back to the console room to find the Doctor and K9 waiting by the doors.

The Doctor pulled the doors open to a gust of wind accompanied by the salty smell of the ocean. He stepped through first onto sandy soil dotted with tufts of dry, brown grass.

"Is this the beach, then?" Rose asked as she followed. "Not quite what I was expecting."

"Negative, mistress," K9 replied in his robotic voice as he hovered at about waist height. "Location identified as Santa Barbara Island. Status: uninhabited."

"Well, except the seagulls and elephant seals," the Doctor clarified, pointing across the small island to a flock of white and grey birds huddled near the cliff edge. "And a ship that should be right about...here." He stuck his hand out and appeared to make contact with thin air. "K9, if you'll do the honours."

A blue beam shot out from the tip of K9's nose and the air in front of them started to shimmer. Within seconds, the view of dead-grass-covered island was blocked by a dark crescent shaped ship that looked awfully familiar.

"Doctor, this looks just like the ship Torchwood found. Is there more than one, or did this follow us here?"

The Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver. "Only one way to find out." He unlocked the airlock door and pushed it inwards into the darkened ship. Rose wished she had a torch with her but soon found K9's glowing red eyes lit their surroundings surprisingly well. She followed K9 and the Doctor through the ship until they arrived at the bridge–a spacious but dark room filled with currently blank screens. The Doctor tapped one of the screens at the far end of the room and one by one, each of the dozen screens flared to life.

"K9, access the ship's computer and find out whether this is the same ship we investigated in London."

"Affirmative, master." The robotic dog rolled to a panel near the Doctor and extended a thin probe into the computer port. "Accessing data. Confirmed. Ship's logs and registration are identical."

"So it did follow us. But why?" Rose asked. "And how? There was no sign of a crew."

"Just like now." The Doctor turned to face Rose and leaned against the console. "I don't think it followed us. I believe this is where it originally landed, which still doesn't tell us how it ended up in London nearly 72 years from now.

"So if this is where it was meant to land, where's the crew?"

"I'd say no more than, oh, seventy miles from here, and most of that is ocean."

"You're saying the crew is somewhere in southern California."

"Unless they're quite fond of swimming, yes. But now we'll know when they come back."

"You mean we just wait here?"

The Doctor shook his head. "K9 will monitor the ship from the TARDIS and let us know if they return. We're going to the cinema."


	5. Chapter 5

Rose looked around to admire the largest cinema she'd ever seen. Even the IMAX theatre wasn't half as big as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and it certainly wasn't this grand. Everything inside was red and gold, from the red velvet plush seats to the gold columns that climbed the walls to meet an ornate gold chandelier on the ceiling. A red and gold curtain with a bamboo motif covered the massive movie screen as she and the Doctor found their seats in the theatre along with hundreds of others.

Rose felt a little underdressed in her blouse and slacks compared to the women around her in beautiful dresses, but it was still a step up from her usual jeans and trainers. Between Jack's investigation and the abandoned space ship, she figured it was better to be ready to run at a moment's notice.

Rose's hand remained interlaced with the Doctor's throughout the start of the film. She tried to keep an eye out for changes from the _Wizard of Oz_ she knew, but it had been years since she'd seen the film and her recollection was fuzzy. When Dorothy landed in Oz and the scene burst into colour, however, one change was glaringly apparent.

"Those aren't ruby slippers," she whispered to the Doctor.

"Looks like this world decided to stay true to the book."

Rose harrumphed quietly and continued watching. She thought she'd been so clever with her wardrobe at the previous night's gala only to find this world's Dorothy wore silver slippers. As she became engrossed in the film, she had a vague thought that the songs didn't seem quite the same, either. The change from the familiar tunes didn't seem to bother her, though. In fact, she didn't feel one way or the other about it, even though she remembered always wanting to skip along with Dorothy down the yellow brick road as a child. Now she watched with a detached interest.

She glanced over at the Doctor who was watching the screen intently. The light of the projector caused his spiky hair to look even wilder than usual. Rose thought that normally she was faced with a nearly uncontrollable desire to run her hand through his hair, but now she just filed the observation away for later.

The Doctor looked over at her and frowned. "You look bored."

"I'm not."

He squeezed her hand slightly. "Are you practicing shielding?"

"No."

The Doctor's frown deepened and he leaned forward in his seat to get a better look at Rose, his nose just inches from hers. He then stood to survey the theatre audience, who had gone from oohs of amazement at the brilliant Technicolor to complete silence, and noticed that every face he could see had a similarly blank expression. Not one person even bothered to chastise him for standing and blocking the view, even though past experience had taught him humans tended to get particularly riled by this offense. He grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her up beside him.

"Something is very wrong here, and we need to figure out what." He tugged her along towards the back of the theatre and up a darkened set of stairs. The dim light didn't hinder the Doctor, but he felt a pull on his arm as Rose stumbled on the dark stairs. He looked back to see her still following him methodically up the stairs with a blank expression that was so very unlike Rose.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver to unlock the projection booth door but was surprised to find it already unlocked. He pushed it open to see the film running unattended. In fact, there was something decidedly unusual about the projector. It ran the film reels typical of the time, but a quick scan with the sonic revealed technology far beyond 20th century Earth.

"Doctor!" The shout was accompanied by a light bang of the projection booth door swinging into the wall. The Doctor turned to see Jack Harkness in a broad-shouldered navy suit framed in the doorway with his sonic blaster in hand. Rose remained quiet next to him.

"Rose?" Jack asked quietly as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she responded tonelessly.

Jack looked over Rose's head at the Doctor. "What's wrong with her?"

"Something has sucked all the emotions out of the audience, leaving them like this–aware but uninterested in anything. I suspect it has something to do with this anachronistic projector."

"Why weren't you affected?" Jack asked with suspicion.

"Not human," the Doctor replied simply. "Well, not entirely. What about you? Rose's mental shields weren't sufficient, and I doubt yours are much stronger."

Jack turned his head and pointed to a faint blue glow inside his ear. "Psychic filter. So how do we stop this thing?"

"Wait!" the Doctor shouted as Jack approached the projector. "Stopping the process won't help these people. We need to reverse it."

"And how do we do that? I don't see an instruction manual around."

The Doctor flashed a manic grin and pulled his specs from his jacket pocket. "I am exceedingly clever." He knelt down next to the projector and performed another scan with the sonic.

"What's that?" Jack asked, nodding towards the blue-glowing tube of metal in the Doctor's hand.

"My sonic."

"I can see that, but a sonic what, exactly?"

"Oh, not this again," the Doctor muttered. "Screwdriver."

"You have a sonic _screwdriver_?"

"Not now, Jack! Reverse the polarity on the collector, amplify the signal, and switch to a broad disbursement pattern and...eureka!" A bright light flashed from the projector lens and the film stopped. The Doctor grimaced. "I don't think I'll be saying that again."

"Just a little bit of jiggery-pokery," Rose added. The Doctor looked up to see her familiar smile again, and he jumped up to pull her into a tight hug. "What happened?" Rose's voice was muffled by the Doctor's shoulder.

"The film projector was designed to collect emotions using a psychic energy link."

"Turning everyone in the audience into robots," Jack finished quickly. "Uh, Doc, the natives are getting restless. And while sometimes that can be enjoyable, this is looking more like the angry mob type of situation." Shouting could be heard from the audience below as people began protesting the blank movie screen.

"We have a solution for that," Rose replied, taking the Doctor's hand. "Run!" Rose and the Doctor bolted down the stairs and out the fire door into an alleyway behind the theatre with Jack close on their heels. The bang of the metal fire door shutting echoed through the dark alley lit only by a few feeble lights on the side of the building.

"Does this happen to you two often?" Jack asked as the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver to lock the door.

"Occasionally."

Rose bumped the Doctor's shoulder with her own. "Pantellion," she reminded him. "Two days ago."

"All right, frequently."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Maybe I should stick with you two. Sounds fun."

The Doctor ignored Jack and addressed Rose. "I did some reading last night and learned in addition to horribly offending them, we're apparently now life partners according to the laws of Pantellion."

"What? You mean like married?" Rose squeaked. Not only was she shocked at his words, but how matter-of-factly he said them. The part-human Doctor might be a little more open about his feelings, but he was still the Doctor.

"That makes the fourth, no wait, fifth time since I've been, well, this me. Though if you want to get technical and only count post-metacrisis–"

" _This_ you?" Jack asked. "As opposed to what?"

"Doctor," Rose interrupted firmly, not wanting to discuss it now and especially not in front of Jack. "What if there are more of those projectors around?"

The Doctor's expression quickly turned serious. He didn't answer and instead started pacing a tight track across the width of the alley as he thought aloud. "Collecting human emotions. For what purpose? Think, think!" He ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end more than usual. "What for? Selling them? No, they had synthetic emotions on New Earth. Why steal them when you can just make them?"

"Because they want the real thing," Rose offered.

The Doctor whipped his head around to look at her, momentarily startled. "Yes, yes, of course," he said coming back to himself. "Brilliant as always, Rose Tyler." But he didn't grin or hug her like he normally would. "Normal humans can't tell the difference between real and synthetic emotions, but an empathic species would."

"That doesn't exactly narrow it down, Doctor," Jack complained.

"Empathic alone, no, but what about an empathic species with a cloaked spacecraft parked not more than a hundred miles from here?"

Jack crossed his arms over his chest. "That sounds...plausible."

"You mean the Voed ship?" Rose asked. "But you said there were three possible kinds of aliens that could have come on that ship."

"I did, but only one of those three species is empathic—the Vidinians."

"And how exactly are we gonna find these Vidnans? The ship was empty."

" _Vidinians_. No, the ship was left somewhere it'd be safe, hidden out of the way but accessible by short-range transmat. But the Vidinians must be closer than that. Much closer. Couldn't risk losing what they went through so much effort to collect. We just need to follow the signal."

Jack looked down at the vortex manipulator on his wrist. "What signal?"

"Oh, it's subtle. I'm not surprised you missed it." Rose gently elbowed the Doctor in the ribs. "Sorry, was that rude? Come on, then." He held the sonic screwdriver out in front of him and grabbed Rose's hand as he led the way out of the alley. The wide expanse of Sunset Boulevard was lit by streetlights and the headlamps of passing cars as they hurried away from the theatre.

"How far are we going?" Rose asked as she struggled to keep up with the Doctor's long stride.

"Want me to carry you?" Jack said softly in her ear. The Doctor with his (mostly) Time Lord hearing didn't miss the suggestive tone and gave Jack a withering look. Jack, however, was undaunted. "You know, I've had executioners who were friendlier than you. In fact, there was this one couple, lovely people, really, and you don't get that often with executioners, but let's just say a there was a fair amount of hypervodka involved. Things got a little crazy."

They paused briefly at an intersection as the Doctor consulted his sonic. Rose gave Jack a wide grin. "Do all of your stories end up with you naked?"

"Have you heard him tell any that didn't?" the Doctor asked without looking up.

Jack frowned. "I don't recall telling you any that did. Until now. You know, the problem with time travel is that things sometimes happen out of order. Have we met before?"

Rose's expression fell and the Doctor briefly looked up with a guilty expression before studying the sonic with renewed interest. "We have met before," Rose admitted. "But not the way you think."

"Rose," the Doctor warned softly. "We need to keep moving."

"We're from a parallel world," she explained quickly. "The Doctor and I, we used to travel with you. Well, with our universe's Captain Jack Harkness."

"Captain?" Jack asked, as he followed the Doctor and Rose across the wide boulevard.

"I told you he wasn't really a captain," the Doctor muttered.

"Actually, it's commander. And how long did we travel together?"

The Doctor didn't take his eyes off the sonic as he started down a dark alley, the blue glow acting as a torch. "Oh, you know, time travel. It's so hard to keep track." Rose narrowed her eyes at him, but the Doctor continued before she could say anything. "And here we are."

Rose looked at the unmarked metal door set into a brick wall at the end of the alley. "And where's that?"

"Twentieth Century Wolf," Jack supplied quickly. "This is one of their soundstages."

Rose and the Doctor both whipped their heads around to look at him. "You mean Fox, yeah?" Rose asked. "Twentieth Century _Fox_." Rose had a funny feeling in her stomach as Jack looked genuinely confused by her question.

"I don't think he does," the Doctor said quietly. He shone the light from the sonic screwdriver above the door where letters stencilled in white paint read Wolf Studios. "Rose, I think you should go back to the TARDIS."

"What, just because it says wolf instead of fox? I'm not leaving you." Rose was adamant.

The Doctor looked resigned and pointed the sonic at the door lever before pulling it open slowly. Jack held his blaster in front of him, eyes trained on the door.

"Flanking positions," Jack ordered quietly. "I'll go right; you two go left." He winked. "See you in hell."

The hallway beyond was dark, and the Doctor shut off the sonic's tell-tale blue glow. His superior vision could pick out shapes in the near blackness, so he grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her behind him as they stole through the corridor to the right, ignoring Jack's instructions. Rose couldn't see a thing as she followed the Doctor slowly and silently until they rounded a corner, and the light ahead was nearly blinding.

A lamp was on in one of the offices with light glowing under the door and through the tiny gaps of drawn window blinds. The Doctor ducked under the window, staying low to the ground, and pressed his ear to the door. Rose squatted down and pressed her back against the wall just below the window.

"Vidinians?" she mouthed silently. The Doctor nodded. Before she could discover his intentions, the Doctor gave Rose a reassuring smile and wink before jumping to his feet and flinging the office door open.

"What is he doing?" Jack hissed into Rose's ear.

"What he's good at," she replied with more confidence than she felt. The niggle of fear that this Doctor was just a bit more mortal never fully left her, especially when he ran full-tilt into dangerous situations. "Do you happen to have an extra blaster?"

Jack pulled up his trouser leg and pulled his familiar compact laser deluxe from a holster strapped to his calf. Rose took the weapon, giving it a brief once over. Jack had shown her how to use it once years ago when the Doctor wasn't around, and it wasn't that dissimilar from her own Torchwood pistol. She knew the Doctor didn't care for weapons, but she'd rather have him be disapproving than dead.

Rose stood and tucked the small blaster in the waistband of her slacks. She saw four men in identical dark suits who looked perfectly human, as far as she could tell, surrounding the Doctor. He, of course, stood there with a daft grin and empty hands out, palms-up.

"Who are you?" the tallest of the four men asked in a harsh whisper.

"I'm the Doctor," he replied cheerfully. He grabbed Rose by the elbow and tugged her close to his side. "And this is Rose."

"Hello," Rose responded automatically as if she were reciting her line in a play. She felt what she could only describe as a knock against her mental shields. She cut her eyes briefly to the Doctor, who gave the tiniest of nods. At his confirmation, she cracked open her shields slightly and felt a warm presence in her mind.

"You aren't human," the same man said accusingly, still keeping the volume of his voice low. He sounded a bit like someone recovering from laryngitis–as though a loud whisper was the most sound he could produce.

"I'm more human than I've ever been," the Doctor replied. "No, actually I take that back. I have been more human than I am in this moment, but more importantly, my mind isn't human, which is why I'm immune to your device."

"But she is human," the hoarse whisperer continued. "And yet I can't sense her. It's like something is blocking her."

"Ah yes, that would be me," the Doctor said glibly. "Could we possibly offer you some tea? Might help clear your throat. I've found a good cup of tea can solve a great many things. Then again, I'm not sure you can find much tea in America anymore. They seem to have a habit of just chucking it away."

A random thought occurred to Rose to ask the Doctor later if he'd been present at the Boston Tea Party. It wouldn't surprise her one bit considering it involved history, tea, and trouble–all things the Doctor enjoyed. Then she caught the Doctor briefly quirk an eyebrow at her and realised he'd heard her mental wandering.

The Doctor continued as if Rose's stray musings hadn't distracted him at all. "Of course, you're not just empathic, are you? Telepaths, too. Are your friends here capable of speech at all?"

"Primitive vocal communication is not necessary on our planet," the Vidinian rasped.

"I suppose not with each other, but it does come in handy for communicating with other species."

"Not to mention you do love hearing yourself talk," Rose couldn't help adding.

"Too right," he replied with a grin before turning back to the Vidinians. "Now, I'd like to know why you're installing psychic energy collectors in cinemas." The Doctor opened his mouth to continue but his face contorted in pain and he sunk to his knees, clasping his head between his hands.

"Doctor!" Rose quickly forced her attention back to the Vidinians as she pulled the blaster and aimed it at the leader. _Where the hell was Jack_ , she wondered.

"His mind is strong, but he's no match for all of us." Rose's eyes darted around the room for the source of the voice while keeping her weapon trained on the lead alien. The voice was clearer and smoother than the Vidinian's rasp. But it was just her, the four Vidinians and the Doctor, who remained crouched on the floor, motionless.

"Stop it!" Rose shouted. She was surprised when all four Vidinians visibly flinched. But her surprise didn't last long as she felt something crash into her with the force of a massive wave. The next thing she knew, there was a familiar cool hand against her cheek and a voice calling her name.

"Rose? There's my girl. No time for a kip, we've got to stop a nefarious alien plot. Though I suppose this lot only counts as somewhat dangerous rather than full-fledged nefarious."

"Doctor, what happened?" She took his hand and scrambled to her feet, pressing a hand to her head as she wobbled.

"The Vidinians hit you with more than your telepathy could handle. Overloaded your brain."

"That sounds bad, Doctor." She paused and gave herself a quick once over. Everything seemed to be working now that the dizziness had subsided.

"No need to worry. Your natural defences caused you to black out before any damage was done. Now hurry, we need to get back to the TARDIS."

"What for?"

"I've figured out how the Vidinian ship ended up in Blackwall Basin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: On a recent rewatch of series one, "The Unquiet Dead," I realised the Doctor does indeed tell Rose he "pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party," but the line goes by so fast, I don't expect Rose would remember over five years later.


	6. Chapter 6

"And how exactly did their ship end up in London?" Rose asked from the safety of the TARDIS console room after she'd caught her breath from the sprint there.

The Doctor turned briefly away from the console where he was dialling in coordinates. "We put it there."

"We did?"

"We will. Right now. We need to keep the Vidinians from escaping. Well, escaping any further than they already have. They won't get far without a ship, and according to K9, they haven't returned to it yet." The familiar wheezing noise of the TARDIS accompanied the time rotor as it started moving up and down. Seconds later, the floor shook and Rose looped her arm around one of the coral struts to stay upright.

"But why London in 2013? Why not just park it on the moon in 1939?"

"Well, how would we find it on the moon in 1939? Plus, what if someone saw it? No, better to leave it safely on Torchwood's doorstep." The Doctor frowned briefly. "Ooh, I can't believe I said that."

"We're not going to cause a hole in the universe by going back, right?" Rose asked suspiciously.

"Hardly. It's a causality loop. We have to deliver the ship because we already did."

Rose decided either she was going completely mad or she was finally getting the hang of time travel because what he said actually made sense. "And how exactly are we gonna do that?"

"Remember how we used the TARDIS to tow the earth?"

Of course Rose remembered. It was the last day she'd seen the other Doctor, just before he'd left her and his human counterpart on a beach in bloody Norway. The memories of that day were seared into her mind forever. But this wasn't the time for those nearly year-old wounds, and she briskly shoved the thoughts aside.

"But you had Torchwood and the rift and Sarah Jane's talking computer."

The Doctor placed his hand on the back of his neck, realising that Rose remembered that day all too well. In fact, he briefly recalled seeing Rose cozied up to his Time Lord self watching something on the old TARDIS' monitor. Shaking off the memory and accompanying jealousy, he continued to explain his plan.

"The power needed to tow the entire Earth was enormous, but this is just a single spaceship. Hardly difficult for the TARDIS and a Time Lord's best friend."

 _Best friend?_  Rose wondered. Did he mean her? While they had been the best of friends for years, she wasn't so sure that was the label she wanted for their current relationship. To be honest, that wasn't the label she'd wanted since pretty much the beginning. The light sound of wheels on metal drew Rose's attention to the corridor and the appearance of K9, and suddenly she realised he hadn't meant her at all. She hoped desperately that the flush burning her cheeks wasn't visible.

"K9, I need an energy beam to lasso the Vidinian ship. We're right on top of it. Just a short hop needed."

"Affirmative, master." The metal dog extended a probe from his nose, which slid neatly into a port on the side of the console.

"You could have at least made him wireless," Rose teased. "No wi-fi in the fifty-first century?"

"No, actually. Besides, a physical connection is more reliable. Now, when was it again?"

"Fifth of June, 2013," Rose recited.

"Yes, that's right. One a.m. according to the CCTV footage." The TARDIS rocked more violently than usual. Rose tucked her head and arms in automatically as she fell backwards onto the grating and grabbed the edge of the console to pull herself up. She saw the Doctor do the same on the other side. "Sorry about that. Right, now that we've taken away their ship, we need to find the Vidinians."

"And Jack," Rose added.

The Doctor sighed. "And Jack."

* * *

With the Vidinian ship safely tucked away in twenty-first century London, the TARDIS returned to 1939, materialising in an alley just outside the stage door entrance of Twentieth Century Wolf. The Doctor appeared to be less concerned with stealth this time, as he casually opened the door and stepped into the darkened soundstage.

The sonic screwdriver functioned as a torch as they made their way across the soundstage towards the studio offices. This time no light came from any of the offices, and only the blue glow of the sonic lit their way.

"I don't think they're here," Rose whispered.

"No, they aren't," the Doctor answered in his normal speaking voice.

"Then why are we here?"

"First of all," the Doctor poked his head and the sonic into an office before shaking his head and returning to the corridor, "we need to find the emotion harvesting equipment. I expect the  _Wizard of Oz_  premiere was their first trial, given Jack's involvement, but we need to be sure there aren't hundreds of emotionless humans roaming around Los Angeles." The Doctor looked into the adjacent office but again shook his head and kept moving.

"And secondly...or is that B? No, second, the Vidinians will come back."

"How do you know?" Rose nearly bumped into the Doctor when he turned around to address her.

"Because I saw their communications relay two rooms back, and without their ship, they're going to need to call for a ride."

"You always think you're so clever," Rose teased him, and he never failed to fall for it.

"I  _am_  clever," he retorted.

Rose merely smiled and went up on her toes to give him a quick kiss. The affronted look melted off his face. "Then solve the case so we can get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

The Doctor flung open the next office door and crowed with triumph. The room was filled with rows of equipment that reminded Rose of the massive old computers she'd seen in pictures of Bletchley Park. Each machine was at least a head taller than her and covered with lights, knobs, and buttons. Rose glanced over at the Doctor, and as she suspected, he was in geek heaven. She stuck by the door as he darted between the aisles of computers, or whatever they were.

"I think we're in luck," the Doctor announced as he reached the last aisle. "These all seem to be empty."

"But what are they?" Rose half-dreaded an answer that wouldn't make a word of sense.

"Storage units."

"That's it? Storage units? For the collected emotions, I guess."

"Correctamundo." The Doctor's face scrunched with distaste. "You were supposed to remind me never to say that again."

"I was? I've never heard you say that before."

"No? Hmm." He paused momentarily to consult his memories before continuing. "Well, you are correct that these were designed to store collected human emotions before transferring them to the Vidinian ship. Though why they used a mix of their own technology along with early twentieth century thermionic valve–or vacuum tubes, I suppose they'd call them here–technology, I have no idea. It's a bit like making an aeroplane with bronze age tools. Almost a pity to destroy such creative work."

"Doctor–"

"But that won't stop me!" He started fiddling with the sonic screwdriver. "Just resonate the glass valves until they shatter, and it would take them quite awhile to replace them all."

Rose slapped her hands over her ears as the sonic emitted a high-pitched whine that was soon followed by the tinkling of broken glass. She didn't expect the roar that followed, and her hands on her ears did nothing to block that particular sound. While the sound didn't seem to have a point of origin, Rose instinctively whirled towards the open door to find two Vidinians blocking it. They looked a bit like old-time gangsters lurking in their boxy dark suits.

"Stay right there," Rose ordered firmly as she withdrew Jack's compact laser from the waistband of her trousers. "They can hear me, right?" she asked without turning around, not wanting to take her eyes off the fuming Vidinians.

"Indeed they can. Just like they heard their storage system is now useless. You might consider transistors next time," the Doctor added glibly. "Of course, you'd have to come back in about thirteen years, so on second thought, don't."

"The human is a telepath."

Rose looked from one Vidinian to the other, but it didn't seem either had spoken. The voice lacked the rasping sound from earlier, too. Suddenly, Rose's vision blurred and a fierce headache began right behind her eyes. She reflexively squeezed her eyes shut.

"Rose!" the Doctor cried as he grasped Rose's shoulders. The pain in her head lessened with his touch. The Doctor's voice turned dark with cold fury as he addressed the Vidinians. "Hurting her won't get you what you want. In fact, I'll tell you now that you won't get what you want, period. Not the stolen emotions, and certainly not Rose."

"We don't intend to harm her. She'll fetch a great price on our world."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Rose spat, her head now clear enough to once again aim the blaster at them.

"Well now, it seems we're at a bit of an impasse," the Doctor said, his tone becoming lighter again. "Your psychic energy collector is out of commission, and your ship is gone. However, if you agree to leave this planet and never come back, we can return your ship and send you on your way. I'll even throw in some free advice." His dark, piercing gaze turned ice-cold. "This is your only chance. I suggest you take it."

The Doctor scanned the Vidinians' faces, hoping they would be receptive to his offer, but seconds later, his hands gripped either side of his skull in a futile attempt at relief from the mental assault pummelling his brain. Rose, with her eyes glued to the Vidinians and her back to the Doctor, didn't realise anything was amiss until she heard his knees hit the wood floor behind her.

"He is of no value to us," the voice echoed inside their heads.

"Doctor?" She crouched beside him whilst keeping her weapon trained on the aliens in the doorway. "What's happening?" The Doctor only grunted in pain in response.

"Where is our ship?" the voice demanded.

"London," the Doctor gritted. The pain seemed to lessen with his answer. "Seventy-four years from now, so you can take your time getting there." The brief respite ended as his brow furrowed again.

"You will take us there."

"So you can continue to suck the emotions out of innocent people?" Rose challenged, never lowering the blaster. "No way."

"The effect is not permanent." The disembodied voice sounded like it was trying to reassure them. "No harm is done."

"No harm?" Rose began indignantly but hastily stopped when the Doctor tried to speak again.

"This is a Level Five planet," he said carefully. It was taking far more of his brain than usual to form coherent speech. "You cannot harvest it. It is protected…" The Doctor trailed off and Rose risked a glance at the Doctor to see his eyes were tightly closed.

"It's protected by the Shadow Proclamation," Rose finished for him. "You won't get away with this."

Next to her, the Doctor cried out again, and Rose felt her own heart nearly seize with anxiety. "What are you doing?" she shouted at the Vidinians. Through the open doorway she could now see that at least two more had joined the others. "Stop this! You're hurting him!"

"His mind may be stronger than a human's, but his shields are no match for all of us." The disembodied voice sounded in Rose's head again–she had no way of telling which of the Vidinians had spoken. Rose fired a blast at the nearest alien's leg, silently hoping their anatomy was somewhat similar to humans and that it wasn't a deadly blow. However, the Vidinian managed to neatly sidestep the blast as she fired.

"You broadcast your thoughts, human," the disembodied voice spoke again in her head. The first Vidinian stepped into the room, apparently having decided Rose wasn't a threat. The alien's dark eyes narrowed and the Doctor let out a heartrending scream. Rose laid a hand on his head in a futile attempt to ease his pain. That turned out to be a mistake as a tidal wave of agony washed over her. She lifted her hand away as if burned and turned towards the aliens with rage unleashed by the Doctor's pain. For the first time, the lead Vidinian looked wary of her. If Rose could have seen her own reflection at the moment, she might have been concerned by the way her eyes seemed to glow gold.

"STOP THIS." Rose's voice reverberated through the room and all four Vidinians crumpled to the floor. She blinked at the unexpected sight but quickly turned back to the Doctor, as his sudden silence was even more worrisome than the screaming.

"Doctor?" she asked plaintively, her voice back to normal. He didn't react, and she laid her head on his chest, sighing in relief as she heard the rapid pounding of his single heart. She heard heavy thuds coming from the corridor and jumped to her feet with her blaster ready.

"Rose?" Jack's voice called. She jumped over the still unconscious (at least she hoped that's what they were) Vidinians to peer into the corridor. There was Jack striding down the corridor followed by two creatures that looked like rhinoceros that had learned to walk on two legs and developed a penchant for black armour.

"Jack, hurry! We have to get him back to the TARDIS."

Jack broke into a run but came to a sudden halt when he reached the fallen Vidinians. "Rose, what happened?"

"Who are they?" Rose whispered, still looking at the large creatures behind him.

"Judoon. They're sort of like police. They'll take the Vidinians into custody."

"Help me carry him to the TARDIS," Rose commanded as she wrapped her arms around the unconscious Doctor's shoulders. She started filling Jack in on the confrontation with the Vidinians as they carried the Doctor back towards the alley and the TARDIS.

"Where were you?" she demanded once she'd given Jack a brief recap.

He looked remorseful. "Apparently daylight savings doesn't start until 1942. I was off by an hour." With a snap of Rose's fingers, the doors of a wooden phone booth swung inwards to reveal the warm pinkish-gold coral of the console room. Jack paused just outside the door as he looked into the room that was far bigger inside than a phone booth. "What is this?"

"No time," Rose said briskly. "We've got to get him to the infirmary." The TARDIS had anticipated this need and moved the infirmary entrance next to the console room. Rose would have passed it entirely if not for the larger-than-usual green crescent on the door. Together, they laid the Doctor gently on the table.

"Now what?" Jack asked, looking around at the largely unfamiliar equipment filling the sterile, white room.

"I don't know," Rose replied on the edge of panic.  _Help me_ , she thought to the TARDIS. The image she received in response wasn't what she expected: a steaming mug of...tea? As if to answer her unspoken question, a teabag soon appeared alongside the mug. It fixed him up on that Christmas day so many years ago, so why not?

"Rose?" Jack asked tentatively.

"Tea. A good, strong cup of tea. You'll find everything you need in the kitchen. She'll show you the way."

Jack looked at Rose with concern and confusion. "Tea?"

"Yes, tea. Just trust me. Now shift!" She pointed emphatically at the door. "With lots of sugar," she called after him. With Jack gone, she took the Doctor's hand in hers and gently brushed his unruly fringe off his forehead. He was unusually pale, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast, and his skin, which was always just slightly cooler than hers, was alarmingly cold and clammy. "Please come back to me," she whispered.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice was weak and hoarse from screaming.

"Oh, thank god," Rose exclaimed with relief.

"Rose." His eyelids fluttered open, and he stared at her intensely. "Emergency Programme One."

"It's okay, Doctor. We stopped them." She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "Soon you'll be your energetic self again, and we'll be off on our next adventure."

He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "I'm not as resilient as I used to be, Rose Tyler. No regeneration."

"Don't talk like that. What can I do?"

He shook his head again, the moment slow and stiff. "I think I found a way to send you home."

"I know what Emergency Programme One is. I haven't forgotten the last time."

"Bad Wolf," the Doctor whispered as if he were remembering something. His eyes flew open but were unfocused, staring someplace over Rose's shoulder.

"Besides," Rose continued, perching on the edge of the table. "I could probably pilot the TARDIS home by myself if I had to. But you'll be better in no time. Jack's making you tea, and then you need to rest."

"Not that home. Your home universe. Two TARDISes. He never thought of that. How could he, when there was only one left in existence."

"He?" Rose asked. The Doctor wasn't making any sense.

"The other me. The Time Lord. The real Doctor."

"You are real. And I'm not leaving you."

"You want the real thing," he said sadly. "Not an imitation, part-human Time Lord."

"What?" Rose's sympathy was now tinged with anger and disbelief. "Why would you say that?"

"It's what you said. Outside the theatre."

Rose thought back to the conversation. Her theory about why the Vidinians were harvesting human emotions. His unusually solemn reaction. She took both of his hands in hers. "That's not what I meant. I love  _you_. You, with your one heart and your human emotions that you don't always know how to control. You are the one who stayed here with me, grew a TARDIS for us so that we could keep travelling. Don't you think I worried about whether you'd still want me around once you could travel anywhere and anywhen?"

"It wasn't the same after you left." The Doctor, despite being weak from the Vidinian's mental onslaught, was stubborn and continued. "You love him. You would have stayed with him if you could have."

She could have told him that was true. She could have argued that they were both the Doctor, so of course she loved them both. Instead, she ignored his hypothetical situations and pulled away from him. "He didn't want me."

"Believe me, he did," he replied softly.

"Because you do?"

He gave her a small, sad smile. "Yes."

"Then don't try to send me away," she said resolutely.

The Doctor struggled to sit up, and as Rose moved to help him, he grabbed her arms with a force that was almost painful. "Promise me, Rose. If anything should happen to me, you'll find him." She started to protest, but he gripped her tighter. "Promise me."

"I promise. But that's not gonna happen. You are  _not_  dying. Not today, not anytime soon. It's you and me, Doctor. Forever, yeah?"

Tension seemed to leave the Doctor's face at her reply, and he allowed Rose to help him sit up, though he didn't release his hold on her. Both turned at the sound of the door opening to reveal Jack holding two cups of tea. "And what were you two doing in here?" he smirked salaciously, handing a cup to the Doctor. "I came back and the door was locked."

"I didn't…" Rose trailed off as she looked at the Doctor and understanding dawned.

"The TARDIS," they replied in unison.

"I don't know if that's cute or creepy," Jack deadpanned.

"Feeling better?" Rose asked after the Doctor had taken a few sips of tea. Colour had returned to his face, and he was sitting fully upright without assistance.

"Immensely. Just the stuff for healing the synapses."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "And you're no longer in danger of shuffling off this mortal coil?"

"Shakespeare. Impressive."

"Let me guess, he got that one from you."

"Not exactly," the Doctor said, drawing out the words, "but I may have helped inspire Hamlet's famous soliloquy. We should go see him. Well, on second thought, maybe not. He's a bit of a flirt."

"Works for me," Jack commented. "But then again," he looked from Rose to the Doctor, "I probably need to report back to close out the Vidinian incident."

Rose's face fell. Even though he wasn't quite her Jack, she enjoyed his friendship and didn't want to lose him again so soon. "You could always come travel with us for a bit," she offered.

The Doctor took Rose's hand. "I'm sure Jack has Time Agent business to attend to." By his words, Rose thought the Doctor was just trying to get rid of Jack, but she didn't feel any jealousy from him like she had before. "He has to," the Doctor said. After a moment, Rose realised he hadn't spoken aloud but in her head.

"At least keep in touch, then, yeah?"

Jack gave her a suave smile that was almost a leer. "Whenever you want to have a good time, just give me a call." Rose giggled but the Doctor just glared, and the glare intensified when Jack swept Rose up in a hug and gave her a chaste (for Jack, at least) kiss on the lips.

Jack turned to the Doctor, who gingerly climbed down from the table. "I'm not kissing you," the Doctor told him. But he did pull Jack into a hug.

"Given the kind of trouble you two get into, I'm sure I'll see you again soon." Jack flipped open the Vortex Manipulator strapped to his wrist, tapped in coordinates, and with a wink and a salute, he disappeared with a faint shimmer of energy.

Rose took the Doctor's hand in hers. "I don't understand. Why couldn't he stay?"

"This Jack is still a Time Agent. He hasn't yet left to become the con man he was when we met him."

Rose frowned. "But this is a parallel universe. That might not even happen here."

"Maybe not, but whatever led to Jack losing two years of memories was likely important, the type of event that remains fixed. However, if the TARDIS comes across an alien ship during the London blitz, I'll know who to blame."

"Do you think we'll see him again?" Rose asked wistfully.

The Doctor pulled her into a hug. "I've learned that Jack Harkness is nearly impossible to avoid."


	7. Chapter 7

Not long after Jack's departure, Rose helped the Doctor from the infirmary to their room, insisting he still needed to rest. She lay awake beside him in the darkened bedroom long after he'd fallen asleep, not quite trusting he was all right. Eventually, exhaustion claimed her as well, and Rose fell into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke, it took her a moment to discover something was out of the ordinary. She blinked a few times to clear her vision and saw the Doctor with his black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose sitting up against the headboard and reading a book. He was still wearing his rumpled white shirt from the previous day with the buttons at the collar and cuffs undone. Needing far less sleep than a normal human, the Doctor was nearly always out of bed and tinkering with something in the console room by the time Rose awoke.

"Hello," he greeted with a smile, knowing she was awake even before she did.

Rose gently ran her hand along his arm. "Hello. How are you feeling?"

"Right as rain. I slept nearly five hours. There's something I can't quite figure out, though," he continued, setting his book on the small bedside table. "How did you stop the Vidinians?"

"The Judoon took them away." Rose knew she was dodging the truth, but so did the Doctor.

"No, before that. The attack stopped before the Judoon arrived."

Rose sat up and leaned one shoulder against the headboard. "I'm not really sure. I just wanted them to stop hurting you, and then...they just stopped and sort of fell over."

The Doctor's brow creased with concern, and he leaned in to peer closely into Rose's eyes. "Are you feeling all right?" He pressed a hand to her cheek, and she got the impression he was considering licking her forehead to see if her electrolytes were off. She certainly wouldn't put it past him.

"Of course I'm all right. They didn't do anything but give me a headache."

The Doctor wasn't convinced. "No sign of glowing, burning, or the ability to see all of time?" Rose just looked at him as if he were mad. "Does your head still hurt?"

"Nope."

He moved his hand up towards Rose's temple. "May I?"

She nodded, and the Doctor reached out into Rose's mind, finding himself in the long hallway lined with a variety of mismatched doors that represented Rose's memories. He was surprised to find a blonde figure in what amounted to white and beige rags sitting cross-legged on the floor of the hallway.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked in confusion. Memories should have been contained behind the doors, not wandering the corridor.

The woman turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and he could see that she looked like Rose, but not quite. Her hair was lighter and longer, and her eyes seemed to glow, not with the bright golden light he remembered from the Game Station years ago but with a colder white light. Her gaze was almost predatory.

"You know who I am, Doctor," she replied in a husky voice that hardly sounded like Rose at all. She unfolded her legs and stood more smoothly than any human should have. "The big," she paused for emphasis, "bad wolf."

"You can't be here," the Doctor insisted. "You'll kill her."

The woman didn't seem concerned by his dire statement. "But I've been here all along."

The Doctor shook his head. "If that's true, then why is Rose changing? Her telepathy is growing stronger, and you managed to stop the Vidinians."

The Bad Wolf looked at him guilelessly. "We wanted to keep you safe. It's what we've always wanted. But did you consider that perhaps  _you_  are the one changing her?"

"What? Me? How?" The Doctor turned in place as the Bad Wolf circled him slowly, stalking or possibly just biding her time. He didn't remember the time entity being this frustrating.

"For four years, Rose's mind was alone," the Bad Wolf finally pronounced. "Now she has both you and her." At the Doctor's look of confusion, she clarified, "The TARDIS. The three of you are bonded."

The Doctor frowned as he considered her words. "Oh!" he exclaimed, finally understanding what she meant. "But that's brilliant." Bad Wolf just smiled indulgently. "That shouldn't be possible for a human, though."

"A human-Time Lord biological metacrisis shouldn't be possible, either, and yet here you are." Bad Wolf trailed a finger down the Doctor's shirtfront. "Besides, Rose is...special."

The Doctor gave her a dreamy smile. "That she is. But how do you fit into this?"

Bad Wolf shrugged. "Oh, I'm just the interface."

Before he could question her further, he was interrupted by the real Rose, and the mental connection was broken. "Well? Everything all right?"

The Doctor opened his eyes to see Rose's face just inches from his. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Perfect."

"So now you'll stop worrying?"

The Doctor's eyebrow rose. "You're far too jeopardy-friendly for me to ever stop worrying. So, Rose Tyler, where to now?" He leapt off the bed and held his hand out to Rose, who let herself be pulled to the edge of the mattress.

"Torchwood, I suppose. Dad will want to know about the Vidinian ship."

The Doctor sighed. "You know I don't like to stick around for the clean-up."

Rose placed a hand on his arm. "I know, but we'll just make our report and be on our way. But first, I'd like to go clean up. Thursday morning should do it, yeah?"

The Doctor nodded and quickly sonicked the wrinkles out of his shirt and pulled on his jacket before heading to the console room. When Rose joined him some twenty-two minutes later, she noticed a post-it note had appeared next to the monitor. As the TARDIS hadn't seen fit to translate the Gallifreyan scribbles, it could have been anything from a reminder to his shopping list. She pressed the sequence of buttons on her section of the console to start the materialisation process, and the telltale shudder of the time ship let her know they'd arrived.

The Doctor followed Rose down the ramp and into Pete Tyler's high-rise office. Pete himself stood behind his desk, only mildly surprised by the sudden appearance of a bookcase that swung open to reveal his daughter and her...Doctor.

"Rose, Doctor," Pete greeted them efficiently. "What's going on?"

"Your mysterious alien ship is a mystery no longer," the Doctor announced grandly.

"That's excellent news." Pete gestured for them to sit. "What can you tell me about it?"

"It belongs to a group of empathic aliens called Vidinians," Rose explained. "They came to Earth to harvest human emotions."

The Doctor folded his lanky frame into one of Pete's sleek, modern office chairs. "We of course foiled their plan, and they are safely in custody."

"And quietly, at that. Excellent work. But Rose, why didn't you call for backup?" Pete's tone suggested more fatherly concern than that of her employer.

"Because it happened in 1939."

Pete's brow furrowed in confusion. "Then how did their ship end up here?"

"Well," the Doctor stretched out the single syllable, "that would be because we brought it here."

Pete looked to Rose for confirmation that he'd heard the Doctor correctly. "You brought it here? But you said you didn't know what it was."

"We didn't," Rose replied quickly.

"At the time, we hadn't yet brought it here," the Doctor added, as if that clarified everything.

Pete placed a hand on the back of his balding head. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"It's a temporal causality loop," the Doctor explained. "We had to bring the ship here so we—well,  _you,_ Torchwood—would find it so we'd know to bring it here. It had to happen because it had already happened."

"In order to keep the Vidinians from escaping," Rose added.

Pete still looked confused but pushed on. "So just where are these Vidinians?"

Before either could answer, an alarm blared throughout the building. Pete glanced at his phone before shoving it in his suit jacket pocket. "There's been a breach in the lever room."

"I thought that might happen," the Doctor muttered.

"What?" Rose pushed him along to follow Pete to the lift.

"I suspect the Judoon have come to collect the ship."

"The who?" Pete asked.

"They didn't have to break in," Rose complained.

The Doctor gave her a sceptical look. "Just you try explaining that to a Judoon. Pete, tell your people to let them take the ship."

"And why should I do that?" Pete demanded as the lift doors opened.

The Doctor stepped in front of Pete to stop him, his expression hard. "Judoon are hired muscle for the Shadow Proclamation. A bit thick, Judoon, but they follow orders to a fault and won't allow Torchwood to prevent them from executing those orders. They've taken the Vidinians away to stand trial, and now they've come to collect that ship as evidence. If you resist, you put every person in this building at risk. Is keeping one spaceship worth that?"

"Of course not," Pete answered immediately. "Doctor, I know you don't have a terribly high opinion of us, but the objective of this Torchwood is to protect the Earth."

"Then let's hope your people haven't done anything to provoke the Judoon," the Doctor relented as he let Pete go by.

They entered the lever room to find a standoff in progress. A Judoon platoon (and didn't the Doctor enjoy saying that) lined the dark inner curve of the Vidinian ship, but at least a dozen Torchwood agents had weapons pointed at the hulking Judoon.

"Stand down!" Rose barked with a harsh authority the Doctor had never heard in her voice before. About half of the agents obeyed her order, with a number of murmured "yes, ma'ams" heard around the room.

"You heard her, stand down," Pete shouted. He strode up to one of the armour-clad Judoon. "You are free to take the ship. Collect it and leave."

The Judoon grunted in Pete's face, and to the Director's credit, he didn't flinch. The rhinoceros-like alien then turned away and spoke in its rhyming native language to the others.

"Everyone stay back," the Doctor shouted, waving his arms at the Torchwood agents. Pete Tyler moved quickly away from the Judoon to join his agents. A crack of thunder shook the room followed by a flash of light. When the humans in the room had recovered from the temporary blindness, they found the alien ship and the Judoon had disappeared. Chaos erupted as the Torchwood agents struggled to comprehend what had just happened. They were on computers and phones, checking sensors and security and CCTV footage for any sort of answer and wondering why the floor was suddenly wet.

The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand, and with a single look—no telepathy required—Rose knew it was time for them to leave. With a wide grin, the Doctor tugged her into a run, and they dashed into a stairwell, down to Pete's office, and into their waiting TARDIS.


	8. Epilogue

Rose pulled the TARDIS doors open with enthusiasm, eager to see the surprise destination the Doctor had promised. They were atop a hill covered with brilliant green grass that was just long enough to sway in the slight breeze. The sky above was pale blue dotted with a few fluffy white clouds. A city filled with modern (or maybe future) skyscrapers was about a mile away. Tiny dots that Rose assumed were flying vehicles of some sort flitted between the buildings.

Rose stepped out onto the grass and took in a deep breath. The smell was familiar, like green apples. She bent down to pick a few blades of grass and held them to her nose. Yes, it was apple grass! And in the distance, she could make out a large green crescent on the side of the nearest building.

"This is New Earth!" She turned around to see the Doctor framed in the doorway of a familiar blue police box and carrying a large wicker hamper.

"More specifically, New New York."

"Don't you mean–" Rose took a deep breath and began counting on her fingers "–New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York?"

"You missed one!" The Doctor grinned as he swept past her and set the picnic hamper on the grass.

Rose stuck her tongue out at him. "You should talk, new new new Doctor."

He pulled a blue plaid blanket from within the hamper, shook it with a flourish, and let it float to the ground. "Sorry, no coat this time. I still miss that coat. Do you remember the first time we came here?"

"Of course. How could I forget cat nuns or being possessed by Cassandra?" Rose paused for a moment. "Are we here to stop the cat nuns again? Did you get another cryptic message on the psychic paper?"

"No, no messages, and as far as I know, no homicidal felines." The Doctor sat down on the blanket and patted the soft flannel for Rose to join him. His expression turned serious. "Rose, I have to tell you something. About Jack."

Rose gave him a questioning look but remained silent as she sat beside him.

"Even if there were cat nuns running human experiments here—and I don't think there are—I still wouldn't have received a message because I'm fairly certain there's no Face of Boe in this universe."

Rose didn't see how they were connected. "But what does that have to do with Jack?"

"Rose, you know that Jack, our original Jack, can't die."

She nodded. "I know, but I don't understand how. Was he always that way?"

"No." He swallowed uncomfortably and wondered for the 172nd time why he'd never told her this years ago, before he lost her. "Bad Wolf."

"What?"

His eyes searched her face, and he continued softly, "All the power of the Time Vortex at your fingertips, and you wanted only two things: to protect me and to save Jack."

"I still don't get it. How did Jack become immortal?"

The Doctor took one of Rose's hands in his. "I know you don't remember everything that happened when you were Bad Wolf, but Jack was dead, killed by a Dalek. You brought him back to life, and when you did, you made it so he could never die."

"I…" Rose pulled her hand away. "That's why you left him behind on the Game Station, yeah? Because you think he's...wrong."

"I don't think, I…" he trailed off and tugged at the collar of his crisp white Oxford shirt. "There were a lot of things going on at the time, and...I shouldn't have left Jack behind. But that's not my point. Jack can't die, not permanently at least, but he does age, albeit slowly. By the year five billion, and quite likely eons before then, he had become the Face of Boe."

Rose thought back to the large, wrinkled alien head in the glass tank she had seen on her very first outing with the Doctor. She couldn't believe that was what her friend would one day become, nor that she was the one who had made him that way. "And this Jack, he's still mortal."

The Doctor nodded. "And I hope he stays that way, because neither of us would survive a return of Bad Wolf."

"Is this your way of telling me to be careful? Because you're the one who was convinced you were gonna die a few weeks ago," Rose said hotly before laying back with a sigh to watch the clouds travel across the pale blue sky. She felt the Doctor's shoulder brush her own as he joined her. "I still love it, you know, travelling with you." She rolled onto her side to look at him. The Doctor's blue suit jacket was unbuttoned and he'd tucked his hands behind his head.

"How long are you gonna stay with me?" The Doctor asked the familiar question with a knowing smile.

Rose answered on cue. "Forever." She ducked her head to kiss him before pulling back with her familiar tongue-touched smile. "Bit different than the last time we were here."

The Doctor wrapped an arm around her waist and hummed in agreement. "Better." He pulled her down to him again for a longer follow-up kiss.

"So what's in here?" Rose leaned precariously across the Doctor's chest to peek inside the large hamper beside his head. There was enough food within to feed them for the better part of a week. "Is this bigger on the inside, too?"

The Doctor pulled her upright before she fell over and started unpacking the hamper. It was hardly the sandwiches and crisps Rose was expecting. There was fresh bread and multiple kinds of cheese, a platter of perfectly white sliced apples accompanied by a small bunch of bright yellow bananas, a tray of seafood, and little cakes with the Doctor's beloved edible ball bearings. White china plates with dark blue trim, silverware, and two glasses were followed by a bottle of champagne. It was the most beautiful and posh picnic Rose had ever seen.

"What's all this for?"

"Would you like to do the honours?" he asked as he handed her the champagne bottle. It didn't escape her notice that he was deflecting. She went along for the moment and carefully popped the cork. The Doctor held the glasses as she poured before exchanging her a glass for the bottle that went safely back in the hamper.

"To Rose Tyler, defender of the earth."

Rose blushed. "You've saved it more times than I ever have."

"Not in this universe. I've read the Torchwood files. You're credited with stopping over a dozen incidents. Quite impressive for a former shopgirl," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Better with two, though. We're a team, you and me," she replied emphatically. Despite the adventures she'd had with Torchwood, all she'd really wanted was to see him again, and nothing had felt right without him.

The Doctor lowered his glass and looked almost nervous, which was very unlike him. "Rose, how would you like to make that official?"

"I thought we were. Smith and Tyler, Torchwood's premiere alien experts," she announced dramatically. She'd expected him to laugh at her silliness, but instead he looked sombre.

"Doctor?"

"I'm rubbish at this," he sighed as he rubbed a hand against the back of his head. "A year ago on that beach, I told you I could spend the rest of my life with you, if that's what you wanted."

Rose was starting to get worried by his unusual behaviour, and she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We are, and it's fantastic."

"But I thought you might want to make it official, by human standards. A legal and societal commitment."

Rose wasn't quite sure what he was getting at, or at least she wasn't until he reached a hand down inside his bigger-on-the-inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet box the same shade of blue as the TARDIS. Rose gasped when he opened the box to reveal a silver-tone ring in a swirling design set with a solitary stone that appeared to constantly change colour like the fibre optic Christmas tree Mickey had given her three years ago.

"Rose Tyler, will you marry me?" Rose was stunned into silence, and the Doctor kept talking to fill the void. "I mean, we are technically married on six–no, make that seven–planets already, but those were mostly unintentional, and none of those planets are ones we really plan to go back to, so it's not exactly a binding union. And of course, if you don't want to, that's perfectly all right, though I'd prefer you explain it to Jackie the next time she starts dropping very obvious hints so she doesn't slap me a–"

"Yes!" Rose shouted, finally finding her voice and flinging her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Yes?" His voice was muffled by a mass of blonde hair.

Rose laughed. "Yes." She pulled back to see the Doctor's grin was as wide as her own. He plucked the ring from the box and grabbed Rose's left hand, sliding the ring onto her finger. Rose stared at the stone as it changed colour from canary yellow to deep purple and settled on emerald green. "It's gorgeous. What is it?"

"Chameleon quartz. Electrical impulses cause the colour change." He placed a finger atop the stone and it changed once more to a sapphire blue similar to his suit.

"Are you sure, Doctor?" Rose asked uncertainly. "I mean, this is as domestic as it gets."

"It's the adventure I could never have before." He brushed Rose's hair away from her face and kissed her slowly. "Besides," he continued brightly, "it's hardly a mortgage and carpets and the like. We'll still live in the TARDIS and travel the universe." A look of sudden concern crossed his face. "Won't we?"

For a brief second, she thought about teasing him but instead answered earnestly. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

"And that's why you, Rose Tyler, are absolutely brilliant." He put an arm around her waist to draw her against his side, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Might be Rose Smith now," she murmured.

"Nah, you'll always be Rose Tyler to me." A memory rushed to the forefront of the Doctor's mind—his arrival at U.N.I.T.'s Cardiff facility in 2052 several months ago in his own personal timeline. The computer hadn't identified him by his current alias of John Smith, and while he'd had his suspicions at the time, now he knew why.

"Anyway, I rather like the sound of Doctor John Tyler."

* * *

Nearly another month passed before Rose was back in her office at Torchwood Tower again, this time to clean it out. She'd finally told Pete she wanted to step down in favour of becoming a consultant like the Doctor. He'd taken her resignation without argument, instead surprising her by enveloping her in a tight hug and telling her he just wanted her to be happy.

Rose cleared through the remaining open reports quickly before packing up her office's few personal effects. She picked up her desk's solitary photo frame. The tri-fold frame held three photos: her family posed on the sofa at Tony's first birthday, a slightly grainy image of Jack Harkness with his arm slung around her first Doctor's broad shoulders taken from Rose's mobile, and lastly, a more recent photo of Rose and the Doctor that Jackie had insisted upon taking before one of their first actual dates. Rose folded up the frame and placed it, along with a rather large expense reimbursement cheque meant for the Doctor she'd found on her desk, into her bag. The last remaining item was another newspaper clipping that had been at the bottom of her in-box. She still had no idea who was leaving the clippings for her.

This time the photo was in full colour, and Rose recognised the picture. Jackie, along with the Vitex PR department, insisted on some official engagement photos for the media. This one had been taken in the gardens of the Tyler estate, and Rose had to admit it was a particularly good photo of her and the Doctor. She'd worn a burgundy blouse that matched the pinstripes on the Doctor's blue suit, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders. They were holding hands and looking at each other rather than the camera.

The headline proclaimed "Vitex Heiress to Wed Astrophysicist," although despite Jackie's best efforts, they had yet to set an actual wedding date. The article itself was fairly short, recapping the fairy tale spread by the Vitex PR department when Rose first arrived in this universe about the long-lost daughter given up for adoption. It was followed by what little public knowledge existed about the Doctor, which consisted of his alias, age, and the two PhDs procured by Torchwood.

Amused, Rose folded up the clipping and put it with the cheque to show the Doctor later. Just as she'd finished with the last item in her neglected in-box, the distinct wheezing sound of the TARDIS filled the small office. A tall wooden bookcase faded into view in the corner of the room, and the entire front panel swung open to reveal the Doctor.

Rose practically leaped over the desk to reach the TARDIS. "Did something happen?"

He gave her a sheepish look. "I didn't want to wait for you."

"You have a time machine. You never wait," Rose pointed out.

"And that's exactly why I had to come get you," he declared.

Rose raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Mum roped you into wedding stuff again, didn't she."

The Doctor's smile turned to near panic. "Why do humans have to make everything so complicated? So many parties and customs and trivial decisions. We could do a simple Gallifreyan ceremony right here, right now, just you, me, and this!" He yanked on his dark blue tie that perfectly matched his suit.

"Your tie?"

"Well, it's not normally a tie, but it would get the job done."

Rose wrapped her arm around his. "You know we don't have to do anything big or complicated. Mum's just...enthusiastic."

"She's a tyrant. I've met actual despots who would cower in fear of Jackie Tyler."

A mischievous glint lit up Rose's eyes. "Just don't ever let her find out we're already married. That'll earn you a right slap. How many times was that again?"

"Seven, though at least two were annulled by regeneration," the Doctor said thoughtfully. "But I went nine hundred years without being slapped by somebody's mother, and I would be perfectly happy to go another nine hundred without that happening again."

Rose picked the newspaper clipping up from her desk and held it out to the Doctor. "Have you seen this?"

The Doctor quickly pulled out his black-framed glasses before taking the paper, even though Rose was still fairly certain he didn't actually need them to read. "Oh, that is a rather nice picture of us." He looked up with a grin before going back to the article. "Hang on, astrophysicist?"

Rose plucked the clipping out of his hand and tucked it into her bag. "They couldn't rightly put time-travelling alien, now could they?"

"It would certainly make for a more interesting headline."

"Maybe the tabloids will come up with that one. 'Vitex heiress marries nine hundred year old alien. Exclusive photos of the outer space wedding!'" Rose grabbed the lapels of his suit and pulled him closer.

"Now that's just ridiculous. We should at least pick some place with an atmosphere. I suppose Earth is the obvious choice, but there are numerous beautiful planets suitable for humans. Maybe Felsp–" His diatribe was interrupted by Rose's lips on his own, and he happily abandoned it in favour of snogging her.

Some time later when they came up for air, the Doctor tried to remember what they'd been discussing. He noticed he'd somehow ended up sitting on Rose's now-empty desk. "Are you all packed?" he asked, glancing around the nearly bare office.

Rose nodded, hoisting the bag that contained the photo frame and a few other items she intended to keep over her shoulder.

"Well then, Rose Tyler," he said, holding out a hand which she immediately took, lacing their fingers together and letting herself be pulled into the TARDIS. "Allons-y!"


End file.
